Hard fall molt after summer broody molt

[DonyaQuick]

I have a 2.5 year old hen who was broody earlier in the year and raised some chicks for me. As she was wrapping up momma duties with those chicks, she had a moderate molt in late June / early July. When I've had broodies do this before, that was it - no hard fall/winter molt or at most a very light finish up then but nothing very noticable. However, those were also younger broodies (1 to 1.5yrs). This poor girl is now following up with a much harder second molt. Her whole fluffy butt basically came off all at once today when I brought her inside after she was being unusually clingy. She does have a bunch of pin feathers coming in and stopped laying recently, which is all in line with what my other molting girls are doing so I'm not worried about this being anything other than a molt. I'm just not sure whether two molts in half a year is cause for concern. Is a hard fall molt after having already done an earlier, lighter summer broody molt anything to worry about as far as looking for a non-weather stress cause, or is within normal bounds?

 

[Debbie292d]

I raise/breed silkies who are commonly broody and also have two of 20 going through a fall molt. After being broody is a foregone conclusion.

Higher protein helps them with feather growth. Ours already are on 20% feed (Kalmbach's Flockmaker), but still I'll give them some scrambled eggs more often, like twice a week instead of once a week. There are other things higher in protein, like tuna, mealworms, etc., but eggs are probably the most healthiest "treat" to give them.

 

[sourland]

It's within normal bounds, but I'd monitor her closely as she is probably somewhat more debilitated than most. Protein supplementation and watching for hypothermia would be on my to do list.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Protein supplementation and watching for hypothermia would be on my to do list.

Well looks like I have a house chicken for a little bit then...she was quite unhappy when I tried having her back outside briefly this afternoon when it was around 45-50F, so I will not be subjecting her to sub-freezing with such a bald behind. She won't mind a small stay in the house; she raised her chicks in my home office.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oh, I forgot to add: this hen and the rest of her flock have already been on 20% feed for a bit with protein supplement snacks here and there (scrambled egg, tuna and other leftover fish, etc.) so I will just keep that up with her. Today the weather was still 50ish but sunny with no wind, which is better than yesterday, so she's having some outdoor time with her flock while it's warm and is generally doing much better. She has also finally stopped dumping literal handfuls of feathers everywhere she goes, so perhaps she can just spend nights indoors for a bit while the naked areas fill in.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Wanted to follow up on this hen in case someone finds this via google, since the progression of temperature-hardiness for this hen was a little odd.

Back at my last post, she was showing enough cold hardiness pretty rapidly that I did move her back outside after a few days. I checked her each night before locking up the coops to make sure she was snuggled up with someone bigger an fluffier and wasn't shivering. Some time after that when it was much colder, she had two very bad mornings where she seemed absolutely fine in the coop but then was strangely unable to keep herself warm out in the run when she came out for food/water. I always go out at dawn to sit with everyone for a bit and she kept coming to me shivering pretty badly, warming up, and then making another brief food/water dash before coming back shivering. So, I had to bring her in the house for a few hours on those days. She was only in for a few hours on those days because she eventually got too warm at the indoor temps (panting, wings out, etc.) so I put her back outside and she was fine. Each of those bad morningings was a more significant feather-dump time, and big feather dumps seemed to be what was most stressful for her regardless of temperature. She's nearing completion with her molt now and recently went through -10F like a champ (...and I did sit outside with them even in that weather, so I know for sure she was doing well).