Molting and decreased activity . First time owner

[Icehen99]

My Goldie girl is going through a molt . She was hatched January 2025 , I got her in April and saw her first “molt” getting her adult feathers . Now it’s late November and seeing signs of her specifically molting * Lots of gold feathers* and she hasn’t laid in close to a month or so which I know is common due to less light and we live in Minnesota so the days are shorter .
So main question do hens have decreased activity during the molt . She’s now pretty lazy and likes to hangout inside the roosting bar in the coop later than the other ladies and is definitely more “shy”. Do I need to worry ? Or is this normal

 

[nuthatched]

Molting Puts a lot of stress on a chicken's body and makes touching uncomfortable.
Make sure she's on a nice protein feed and don't pick her up

 

[Icehen99]

Molting Puts a lot of stress on a chicken's body and makes touching uncomfortable.
Make sure she's on a nice protein feed and don't pick her up

Thank you . She’s on 18% layer feed. I put her down within a minute of this photo after giving her a good look over . Just wanted to make sure she want alright.

 

[alinas2010]

Cute little hen. Very normal for them be less active during molt. And crabby. They tend to feel pretty sorry for themselves, as one of the other educators says. I think that’s pretty accurate.

Going into molt, especially, activity will decrease, as well as food intake. Which makes sense since less food will be needed as no eggs are being made. They’ll be uncomfortable as pin feathers come in and can get a bit chilled if you live somewhere it is getting cold right now and they lose a lot of feathers. Pay attention and watch that they eat enough and can keep warm at bed time, especially. I offer mine a treat of scrambled eggs or tuna a few times a week to up their protein. Sometimes wetting their feed down into a mash can entice them to eat a bit more, too.

Do be sure to check her over well for lice and mites, though, just to be sure it isn’t anything else making her act off.