Molting or Not?

[adreilly]

My oldest hens are from April 2016 so this will be their first year molting but so far only this one is changing. However she has drastically lost feathers in the last 2 days and even when I pick her up they fall out in chunks. Is this normal? Nobody else is loosing feathers yet.

 

[Soleil_A]

Can i see a picture?

 

[adreilly]

It won't let me upload a photo but all her vent and nearly all tail feathers are gone. Looks like there broken off midshaft or been plucked out.

 

[rosemarythyme]

It's possible it could be a harder molt. My first girl who began molting this year blew off her entire rear and tail in one day. The others did pick at her for a couple of days, which caused some broken feathers, so that could be the cause of the breakage.

 

[mestenos]

Well it's that time of year, but wow, is that hen molting hard.

 

[azygous]

The difference between molt and simply broken or plucked feathers is the presence of pin feathers. You will normally not see uniform areas of pin feathers unless it's molt.

I have three hens going through their first molt right now that are all the exact same age. One has nearly completed molt, the second is halfway through hers, and the third has barely begun.

I have a Cream Legbar of nearly the same age as those three, and she shows zero signs of beginning molt. Her egg donor is a year older than she is, and she didn't start her first molt until June of this year.

Chickens truly march to the beat of their own drums when it comes to molt.

 

[aart]

... who began molting this year blew off her entire rear and tail in one day...

Had a couple doing that in the last week or so....there were more feathers than turds on the roost boards!
Made me think of the term for when dogs do a 'blow coat' type of shed.

 

[viennachicken]

I have 10 hens and they are all 2 years old-like everyone else there are feathers every-where and my girls have stopped laying eggs-now some days I may get an egg or two but there have been several days I haven't got any eggs-just wanted to know if they will ever lay eggs again-they are all healthy-is this normal?

 

[azygous]

I have 10 hens and they are all 2 years old-like everyone else there are feathers every-where and my girls have stopped laying eggs-now some days I may get an egg or two but there have been several days I haven't got any eggs-just wanted to know if they will ever lay eggs again-they are all healthy-is this normal?

If there are no underlying health or nutritional issues, yes, it's normal for two-year olds to cease laying eggs during molt, shedding feathers like so many leaves falling from a tree in autumn, and the short days also curtail egg production.