Molting?

[greenmom]

Hi, I am new at everything chicken and love my girls. One of them has lost all her neck feathers and doesn't look so good. Someone told me they don't molt on the neck. Is this normal?

 

[silkiechicken]

Chickens do molt on their necks, but if they are moulting, they should be showing pin feathers too that are coming out. What does the neck look like? If it's totally bald and no pin feather, or turned red, my guess is you got a picker somewhere out there. If they are pin feathers, then it is normal. A few of my quick molters looked worse than a pin cusion when they droped all their neck feathers... clumps would fall off, but, the pins were definantly there.

 

[luvzmybabz]

OK I am going to bump this to ask a few more ?s about molting. everypost I have read says are the pin feathers there what if they are there but mostly at level of shin, also do birds molt together for a reason. my sil told me the other day she tought the hens were getting picked at well it seems all my cochins the hens are just their necks so far and the roos the feathering on the back of their heads seem to be thinning out. I checked for lice but did not find any but spead out DE as it is time anyway. do birds normally do this together I also have a rir and 2 leghorns and they seem just fine. I would almost think mating as each roos favortie hen is looking bad but the backs of the roos heads? Not sure on age of 1 but other is actually a pullet about 8 to 9 months old.

Edited : How long does this normally last I have 4 chickens that lay regularly 1 is broody and these cochins are 2 of the others and the other one lays regularly just every 3 days (she is a little older).