Feather loss in 8-month Barnevelder

Kriscam

Songster
Mar 19, 2021
132
179
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My 8-month old Barnevelder is one of four hens of the same age. A couple of weeks ago she went broody and we were able to cure her of that in a couple of days by moving her out of the nest box and closing the coop door during the day and moving her to the perch at night. She plucked a lot of feathers to make a brood patch. But I keep finding her feathers in the coop in the morning, in the run, and in the yard. She seems to shed feathers everywhere she goes and only has two tail feathers left! We treated her and the coop with Elector ESP for mites even though we didn't see any. We did see lots of pin feathers though. Isn't she too young to molt? Could the stress of being broody have caused the feather loss? I spend a fair bit of time with the girls and I haven't seen any feather picking or overly aggressive behavior, and none of the other girls are having this issue. We have no rooster, and haven't had any predator pressure so far. They have access to water and Purina Organic Layena all the time. We have a 4'x15' covered run wrapped with clear tarps for winter and an insulated coop I give them either a fruit or vegetable treat during the day and a mix of scratch/mealworms/sunflower kernels in the evening before "bedtime." She is by nature our most skittish and stand-offish girl. She's also started doing this weird thing where she stops as if she's hit a wall and walks straight backwards with her head down. We had our first snow today and I'm so worried she's going to not be able to keep herself warm if this keeps up. Thanks for any thoughts or insights you may have.
 
She may be doing a hard molt after her little "broody" episode. At least, that has been my experience. I've also had them molt this young.

I've had them do that weird walking backwards thing, I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I feel like it's because they feel something on their head/face (whether it's there or not) and their response to get away from it is to put their head down and walk back.

I think she's going to be ok, you'll just have to make sure she gets into the coop at night.
 
She may be doing a hard molt after her little "broody" episode. At least, that has been my experience. I've also had them molt this young.

I've had them do that weird walking backwards thing, I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I feel like it's because they feel something on their head/face (whether it's there or not) and their response to get away from it is to put their head down and walk back.

I think she's going to be ok, you'll just have to make sure she gets into the coop at night.
Thank you so much! It's a relief to know someone else has had this experience. Molting is the only thing that makes sense but I thought she was too young. We'll continue to keep a close eye on her. Thanks again!
 

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