Molt or mites?

[Cchurchill91]

My 18-20 week old Buff Orps have been slowly losing feathers for the last month or so. Nothing dramatically noticeable on my chickens but enough for me to be cleaning their very large run of feathers often. My roosters neck is getting kind of bare and there are big pin feathers coming in there. With their constant preening, and the feather loss, I thought forsure I was dealing with a mite infestation. I treated all 11 of them individually with spray and I checked all under the wings, back of the neck, vent and couldn’t see any signs. Can chickens go through a Molt this early in life or is it possible that I could be dealing with mites and not seeing them? They are picking at themselves frequently throughout the day and I’d hate for them to be uncomfortable and itchy with bugs but if it’s a Molt I’d like to be able to leave them alone and stop worrying. I didn’t even consider that they could be going through a molt until recently and now I feel bad I treated them without visually seeing parasites.

 

[sourland]

It sounds as if they are in their juvenile molt. Better safe than sorry as far as the treatment. Sounds as if your birds are fine.

 

[Cchurchill91]

It sounds as if they are in their juvenile molt. Better safe than sorry as far as the treatment. Sounds as if your birds are fine.

Thank you for the reassurance! It definitely seems like a molt now but was unsure with timing.

 

[sourland]

Young birds will frequently have a light molt at that age. In my experience it has generally been a gradual molt rather than the full blown/naked molt that older birds sometimes face.

 

[Cchurchill91]

Young birds will frequently have a light molt at that age. In my experience it has generally been a gradual molt rather than the full blown/naked molt that older birds sometimes face.

It’s definitely been gradual and light. This is the first time I’ve raised chicks from day olds so knowing this will be very good to know for future reference too. Thanks again!