Lots Of Feathers In The Coop

How old are the chickens you have in there? They could be molting

 

Chicks go through two juvenile molts before they reach adulthood. That sounds like a juvenile molt. These two sites together may help you.

Mississippi State describes molting
http://msucares.com/poultry/management/poultry_feathers.html

Kansas State feather loss
http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/mf2308.pdf

As for mites, this link has pictures, but I'm betting on a juvenile molt.

Ohio State – Mites and Lice
http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html

Good luck!

 

Quote:I have a dozen girls that are 12-1/2 weeks old, and both my coop and run look like a couple of chickens exploded. They're all healthy, so I didn't give it a second thought. I assumed that was normal -- thanks Ridgerunner for verifying that for me. The first batch of feathers were pretty fuzzy; now I notice that they look like more mature feathers, but I can see that the girls are getting a lot more color and patterning in their feathers.

 

I second the "thank you for the info"! I was starting to wonder about whether my girls are molting (all about 16 weeks, 1 that's about 20 weeks), as well. My girls free range in the yard & we've been finding feathers all over the place but primarily in the coop/run area. Is this a sign that they'll lay in the next month or so? That would be nice. They're turning into little freeloaders.

They sleep in the nesting boxes and have kicked out all the fake eggs. I fully anticipate my girls are going to lay their eggs wherever they darn well please, so I do a full-yard check every day. I've only heard egg song twice from my leghorn, the 2nd time being yesterday; but she was singing it while she was strutting around in the yard, so I don't think she was serious. Her face has gotten awfully red lately though still quite pink, not quite red enough. I'm hoping by Labor Day. That would be nice.

 

My girls went through the juvenile molt about seven weeks ago - feathers EVERYWHERE! And then they started laying about three weeks ago.

 

That's right....it's molting time again!

 

My 11 wk old girls have been molting for several days. Yesterday a large dirt devil came through my property and hit the run area-- It was quite a sight to see the hundreds of brown and white feathers heading across the desert!