Molting chicken meaner than hell!! Whats up with that??? help!

[dainerra]

if you had that many prickles and pin feathers all over your body, wouldn't you be a little cranky too?

Plus, you know that the other birds have to be laughing at her because she looks so weird....

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

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OMG, that poor bird. I've never seen a molt like that. It's like she exploded from the inside and blew out all her feathers at once.

 

[KLRA]

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My hens do this too... Whoever's in molt sleeps in the nest box instead of on the roost. My sweetest hen wants nothing to do with me at the moment and it's hard not to take it personally haha. They always come back around though!

 

[gritsar]

My Lilith is a 3+ year old brahma hen, the sweetest bird in the world IMO. Quiet and loving, when I open the coop door in the evening to do a headcount, she jumps down from the roost to come get a cuddle.

She's molting. Yesterday I thought I was going to have to call a priest to do a fowl exorcism. In a span of less than 30 minutes while all the chickens enjoyed their scratch, Lilith picked fights with several of the hens, went after the chicks (before I stopped her) and attacked the rooster. She was making these hard to describle kung fu noises the whole time.

I'd rather deal with a broody hen than a molting one.

 

[gryeyes]

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Ditto.

 

[dainerra]

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my mom saw the pictures and said that I should knit her a sweater lol
Since those were taken she has also lost all of her tail feathers. And now my RIR is starting to molt as well. Honestly, it looks like someone has been butchering a flock in my yard

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

I simply don't understand why chickens molt during this cold time of the year. Why don't they molt in the summer?

The only thing I can think of is that they don't dust bath while molting. And maybe that's important that they dust bath in the summer to keep the mites in check. And the mites are not as much of an issue in the cold?

Anyone know why?

 

[Cpprpnny19]

When our black sexlink hen started to molt, she left
a trail of feathers down the aisleway in the barn and
in and out of every stall.

I panicked thinking something had got her, when she
heard me and showed up at my feet. She's molting so weird!
She lost all the feathers from under the wings down to the
legs first, then around the neck up to the head. Waiting on the
tail feathers lol! It takes so long for them to re-feather.....


Lynne

 

[coyotesmommy]

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My husband agrees, he says it sounds just like me every 27 days !!

 

[coyotesmommy]

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funny funny