is she molting?

[DickMidnight]

here are a few pictures i grabbed of one of my hens.

a few of them are missing back feathers because of our rooster (apparently he has a couple of favorites) but i noticed she’s got some scruffy looking feathers on her side as well.

she’s about a year and two months old.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

If you're in an autumn season I think she could be molting. A lot of it looks like rooster wear like you mentioned. Has she stopped laying?

 

[DickMidnight]

If you're in an autumn season I think she could be molting. A lot of it looks like rooster wear like you mentioned. Has she stopped laying?

i have 8 laying birds but i’m only getting 4-5ish eggs a day as we come into the fall, so it’s possible she’s slowed down.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Ehh, she might be. Or she might in a few weeks. Apart from the handful of favorites my males have (who always look like they were punted into a slow fan), my gals get really scruffy looking for a long time before they start molting.

Heck, one of my pheonixes is nicknamed rumpless during the fall because she drops her entire tail and looks like my araucanas do

 

[aart]

Could be a combo of mating wear and molting.
I think I see a couple pin feathers in that second pic.

 

[DickMidnight]

Could be a combo of mating wear and molting.
I think I see a couple pin feathers in that second pic.

what are pin feathers and what do they mean

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here are links to a couple of molting/feather loss articles that might interest you.

Molting of laying hens | Mississippi State University Extension Service (msstate.edu)

MF2308 Molting and Other causes of Feather Loss in Small Poultry Flocks (ksu.edu)

And I've copies a quote from one of them.

The order in which birds lose their feathers is fairly definite. The feathers are lost from the head first, followed in order by those on the neck, breast, body, wings, and tail. A definite order of molting is also seen within each molting section, such as the loss of primary flight feathers before secondary flight feathers on the wings.

To me that does not look like molting, more like rooster damage. It's always possible that a hen that age is molting this time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere but that looks too concentrated to be just from molting.

 

[DickMidnight]

@Ridgerunner thanks. i appreciate the links and the info.

anything i need to keep an eye on with regards to rooster damage? is there a point where it’s excessive?

 

[casportpony]

what are pin feathers and what do they mean

Pin feathers are immature feathers.

 

[casportpony]

Here is @The Moonshiner's hen with lots of pinfeathers: