Newbie (Molting?) Question....

[cSpring]

Hi,

I've been keeping chickens for a year now and have been looking at this website off and on, and thought this would be a good time to finally join. I started with 3 hens last year, but varmints got 2 of them. I have only 1 left. She just turned a year old in March. Just today she started losing feathers, mostly around her tail and vent area... Not really so much her tail feathers, but the more down like feathers on her but area (What I call her butt fluff... lol). Anyways, I thought she would molt last fall and since she didn't, I assumed she's getting around to molting in her own time... Much like everything else. She'll do it when she's good and ready. Plus, I know it's not unheard of for a chicken to molt in the Spring. My question is, if this molting, can they act weird during the molting process? When I say weird, I don't mean grumpy or anything of that nature. She can walk fine, but she just acts like she would rather not. She spent most of the day hiding under a bush in my yard. My husband and I had to leave earlier this evening for a meeting we had to attend, and when we came home she was not in her coop. It was way past the time she normally puts herself to bed. After 10 min. of searching, I found her under a little table in the corner of my porch right by the front door. We had walked right past her to get into the house and she never made a sound. I could hear her respond when I was calling for her, but she wouldn't come out from under the table as I called for her. She normally comes when I call her. When I saw her under the table, I moved it and she stood up, but wouldn't move. I picked her up and carried her through the house to out back to her coop. When I tried to put her in her coop, she acted like she didn't want to go in. She wouldn't get off my arm. About 3 days ago, I got 10 six wk old chicks and I have them in a separate coop that's right next to hers. She does not like the chicks, so I'm keeping them separate until the chicks get bigger. She has had no problem with being in her coop since I've had the chicks or ever until tonight, and so far, she has not stopped laying. She laid an egg just this morning. Is she molting? Could the chicks be upsetting her? Come to think of it, I had 6 chicks a few weeks ago before they all disappeared, and she wasn't losing feathers or acting this way. Should i be concerned there's something else going on with her? Please help!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

To me it sounds like she is afraid of a predator that is hanging around.

 

[cSpring]

That makes sense. After I shut her up in her coop, our friends who came to our house with us from the meeting left to go home. As I was seeing them out, my boxer followed me out the front door to help see them off. He started sniffing an area of grass right off the front porch with great interest that was real close to where she has been hiding under the table. In fact, for a brief moment this morning, I wondered if a predator had gotten into her coop. When I went out this morning to collect her eggs, I opened the nest box and could see into the roost. There were many feathers laying in the roost, and many feathers laying on the ground to one side of the coop. That's when I realized she had lost feathers. I tried to put that notion out of my mind, because she's not injured and I know she's due for a molt. I hate to admit that I've gotten into the bad habit of leaving the door open to the run part of the coop. I started doing that because she usually gets up about an hour to hour and a half before my husband's alarm goes off in the morning. When she gets up, she wants out immediately, and makes all kinds of racket until someone comes to let her out. So, I started leaving the run door open so she can let herself out. Now, I'm thinking a predator maybe got into the run and was a little too big to get through the roost door, but was maybe able to get its head in enough to get a mouthful of feathers. Maybe that's why she was scared to go back in her coop. The only reason I lost those last 6 chicks I had was, before I got the second coop, I had to turn a plastic dog house into a makeshift coop for them to keep them separate from her. She pecked a couple chicks' heads. One of them was pretty much scalped. I was having to lean a heavy folded up dog pen against the door of the dog house so nothing could get them, but they could just barely squeeze through the bars. After a few nights, I realized this, and found out that they would get out and sleep between the back of the dog house and the side of my house. All 6 disappeared in one night before I could figure out a solution for the dog house. I guess the predator knows to come back to look for more. I don't leave the chicks' coop open, and I swear I will never leave hers open again.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Yes it is pretty tough to make a Fort Knox run. Only 1/2 inch hardware cloth will keep out rats and weasels which kill chickens. So if you want to leave your girl free to exit the coop in the morning, what it would take to make the run safe enough is:

aproned out or buried 1/2 inch hardware cloth to prevent diggers
1/2 inch hardware cloth "cube" basically that she would live inside, with a top on it and everything to prevent climbers or a solid roof
Latches that are raccoon-proof. They are like toddlers and can open latches.

So it is much cheaper to go and buy yourself an automatic coop door opener.

I LOVE mine. It makes such a difference in the amount of work each day to care for my chickens. I can choose when to do my chicken chores once a day (ok twice a day in summer as I have to leave the shed door open due to heat but I can still go out there when I want).

If you have to run an extension cord out there they sell ones with a GFCI on it. Always make sure you have a GFCI when you have extension cords outside. I have been saved from a shock at least twice by my GFCI.

You should be able to integrate your chicks with your hen in another 10 weeks or so very safely, and you may be able to get away with it a little earlier but do observe them as this carries a risk for injury/death if they aren't about the same size as her.

Enjoy your chickens!

 

[cSpring]

My barred rock hen, Ethel, seems to be completely back to normal this morning. Her coop is completely enclosed with a solid roof and a hardware cloth run. She won't have any more problems if her mom would just shut the run door at night, and I plan on making sure I do that from here on out. The 2nd coop, the one I'm using for the chicks, that I just recently got is an A-frame style coop, essentially a prism shape. The whole upper half is the roost/nest boxes, and the bottom half is the run. It's all made of solid hard wood. The only issue I have with this coop is the run is enclosed in wire fencing. The kind you use with those green metal garden stakes. I never liked it, and already had plans to switch it out for hardware cloth. I don't have to worry about weasels here in west TN, but I have seen a snake or two around. The openings in the fencing are more than big enough to let a good size snake through. Plus, I have seen a couple of the chicks stick their heads and necks through the holes and try to walk through it. I don't need them taking their own heads off in a panic if a predator comes back around. I do need to look into using some sort of ground protection to keep any diggers out. Both coops just have natural ground for floors.


Maybe I can integrate the other chicks a little sooner, like you said. They're white leghorn chicks and are quite larger at 6 wks. old than the last bunch of assorted chicks I had. Once I get them successfully integrated I would like to build one large coop, and then I will look into an automatic door opener. Thanks for all of your help!