Molt question

[Altairsky]

My favorite hen is almost done molting. This is her first molt (she's a little over 1 year old).
She hasn't molt her wing feathers yet. Will she molt them later or is she gonna keep her wing feathers for another year?
Her sister is also molting, and she hasn't got new wing feathers either.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I took this excerpt from the link below. The entire article is an interesting read.

The birds will lose old feathers and grow a new set in the following order: head, neck, body, wings and tail.

https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs...ather-loss-in-small-poultry-flocks_MF2308.pdf

 

[ChickyCh00k]

In my experience, the chickens do not lose ALL of their feathers all at once during every molt (some lose more than others). I've never had a completely bare chicken (I have seen pics of some who are nearly bare). Mine will get some bare (ish) spots here and there and look pretty raggedy for many weeks. They might lose a wing feather or 2 (but there are so many left that it isn't noticeable on the bird)... where I tend to notice it most is under the bum, back of neck, head, and chest.

Edited to add: Just because you don't *see* the molt in some areas, doesn't mean it didn't happen to some extent.

 

[thecatumbrella]

I have minimal molt experience, but even then, it seems like wing feathers are a rare find. Maybe those thick shafts give them staying power? Complete speculation, of course.

 

[Altairsky]

That's a very interesting article!
Hopefully she'll molt the wing feathers soon. She went past my fence twice inside my neighbor property and got stuck in there.
I thought she could fly the fence which is almost 9 feet tall. Since my neighbor property is currently on sale, there is nobody I can call to get the gate open and take her back. So I had to sneak in like a thief which is something I really hate to do.
So the second time she got into my neighbor property, I cut one of her wings... Just to find her into my neighbor property again a few hours later.
I swear, I hate cutting my birds wing more than culling them.
At that point, I noticed a hole in the netting: basically what happened? when the workers came into my neighbor property to cut the weeds, they used a string trimmer loaded with a metal blade and destroyed the fencing.
The hole had a mouse-trap shape that allowed my chickens to get out, but not go back in.
So this is really devastating me. I punished my favorite chicken for nothing. Her wing feathers were quite worn, so hopefully she'll get her wing back soon.
Her sister though, she's putting up a new tail, but her flight feathers are still the old ones.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Not unusual for a chicken to not fully molt during their molt cycle. Sometimes a bird will blow out almost everything and look patchy all over, with pin feathers everywhere. And other times they'll lose just a bit around the head and neck or drop all their tail feathers, and they're done for the year.

 

[SoCal Chicken Mama]

So, it seems from looking randomly through some of these posts, that molting causes laying to be curtailed somewhat? My four, about 16 months old, are starting to have their first molt. I was surprised because I thought it would happen when it was warm, and now, October, we are just starting to have our first really cold weather. But local chickeners have told me that it is age related rather than weather related.

With few exceptions, all four of my girls (Rhode Island Red, Golden Sex Link, Buff Orpington, and Easter Egger) have laid an egg a day, almost 7 days a week. The Easter Egger was the last to start, and she needed to be dosed with Calcium Citrate for 7 days, because I had noticed some eggs with no shell. That solved the problem. I was about to start dosing her again, because she hasn't laid for a week, but I wanted to know if I should, or is this just a normal part of molting?
Barbara in SoCal.

 

[ChickyCh00k]

So, it seems from looking randomly through some of these posts, that molting causes laying to be curtailed somewhat? My four, about 16 months old, are starting to have their first molt. I was surprised because I thought it would happen when it was warm, and now, October, we are just starting to have our first really cold weather. But local chickeners have told me that it is age related rather than weather related.

With few exceptions, all four of my girls (Rhode Island Red, Golden Sex Link, Buff Orpington, and Easter Egger) have laid an egg a day, almost 7 days a week. The Easter Egger was the last to start, and she needed to be dosed with Calcium Citrate for 7 days, because I had noticed some eggs with no shell. That solved the problem. I was about to start dosing her again, because she hasn't laid for a week, but I wanted to know if I should, or is this just a normal part of molting?
Barbara in SoCal.

This time of year is very common for chickens to be molting (some molt in spring/summer, but late summer/fall is, I think, pretty typical timing). I might wait to see if you notice egg issues again before using the Calcium tablets. If that particular bird is molting, she will likely drop in production (or stop altogether for a while).

 

[Ridgerunner]

So, it seems from looking randomly through some of these posts, that molting causes laying to be curtailed somewhat?...................... but I wanted to know if I should, or is this just a normal part of molting?

Barbara, chickens evolved to lay eggs and raise chicks in the warm weather months and stop laying in the fall when the weather and food supply was not good for raising chicks. Their feathers wear out so when they stop laying eggs they use the food that was going into making eggs to instead make new feathers. The trigger to stop laying and molt was the lack of sunlight (the days getting shorter). Technically it is the nights getting longer that triggers it, not the days getting shorter, but the results are the same.

Through selective breeding we have altered this pattern some, breeding them to lay a lot and not go broody that often, but the nights getting longer still causes practically all of them to stop laying and molt in the fall unless you manage lighting so they do not realize the nights are getting longer.

Of course there are exceptions to this, there are exceptions to practically everything. If they are fed a highly nutritious diet some will lay while molting. This is rare but you occasionally read about it on this forum.

This is one of the reasons I often say that you do not get guarantees with living animals, anything can happen. But for the most part, they stop laying when they molt.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Indeed. What @Ridgerunner said. Feathers are made mostly of protein. It takes a lot of protein to replace them. So instead of using protein to produce eggs, the chickens use it to replace feathers. Therefore, egg production typically drops or stops. I used to feed 16% layer feed but when my hens molted I switched them to a 20% "feather fixer" formula. I liked it because it had low or no calcium, which makes it ideal for my flock that includes non-layers, since too much calcium can be harmful to them. They've been on 20% all-flock ever since, with oyster shell for calcium (those that need it help themselves) and grit in separate vessels on the side.