Molting - Broody

[The Golden Egg5]

My 7 month old bsl has been sitting in the laying box for 5 days. Shes laying on the 2 fake eggs, and the others just use the other boxes. So today, i picked her up and looked under her, and her whole underside is completely bald like it was shaved. Can she be molting and broody together? And shes the only one out of eight hens.

She's not molting. When hens go broody, some pluck their feathers off their breast so they can have full contact on their eggs for them to hatch.

 

[galean]

Thanks for the info! This is my first season with them, and i am still learning as i go.

 

[av8torcrj]

I found this thread after looking up "post broody moult" after noticing that 3 hens that had been summer broody, 2 utterly relentless for months, have gone into heavy moult versus their 65 flock mates that have not. I'm personally convinced that there is an evolutionary propensity for a moult post-broody. It's just too much of a coincidence that just these three now look like porcupines while everyone else is still just rooster-haggard. An interesting discovery for me after many many years of raising poultry.