Official BYC Poll: Where Do You Get Your Eggs From When Your Hens Are Molting?

[BYC Project Manager]

When chickens molt egg production will slow down at best, but for most hens, it will stop altogether. Since an egg contains about 13% protein, to develop a full coat of feathers, chickens must prioritize their new plumage by eating all the protein they can get. Therefore, their bodies divert the protein they extract from food from egg-laying to feather-growing, so they stop laying eggs.

So Where Do You Get Your Eggs From When Your Hens Are Molting? Please place your vote above, and elaborate in a reply below if you chose "Other".

Further Reading:

• Molting: All You Need To Know
• What Happens When Chickens Molt?
• Feather Molt: An In-depth Look at Molting
• Chickens Losing Feathers? Managing Your Flock's Molt

(Check out more Official BYC Polls HERE!)

 

[Chookchicken]

Our hens don’t produce enough for us to live off normally, so we always have grocery store eggs (from free range hens).

 

[Darius123]

I have around 10 pullets, 4 hens, and around 20 young pullets, so i dont really run out of eggs, especially because i dont use that much egg in my food.

 

[Boise-girls]

We buy organic, free-range or pasture-raised eggs from Natural Grocers on the premise that those hens have better lives than regular commercial layers. (Small family, so the extra cost isn't a big deal.) The yolks are almost as dark as the eggs our girls lay, but we were shocked by the size when we purchased some recently. We had gotten used to banty eggs, so the store-bought seemed ginormous!

 

[3KillerBs]

The Ladies in the current flock are about to enter their first molt so I don't know how their laying will be affected. The plan is that the POL pullets will provide and that we'll keep rotating chickens to replace about 1/3 of the flock each year.

With the in-town flock, we just lived with it -- buying grocery store eggs if we had to have eggs, but mainly just not eating so many eggs.

 

[HKG]

The hens lay so many eggs that we never really run out. I think there is about 70 or more in the refrigerator right now.

 

[Tclloyd0812]

The hens lay so many eggs that we never really run out. I think there is about 70 or more in the refrigerator right now.

Same here. We have 80-85 hens so its not an issue here.

 

[Parront]

The Ladies in the current flock are about to enter their first molt so I don't know how their laying will be affected. The plan is that the POL pullets will provide and that we'll keep rotating chickens to replace about 1/3 of the flock each year.

With the in-town flock, we just lived with it -- buying grocery store eggs if we had to have eggs, but mainly just not eating so many eggs.

Same plan here. Feathers are all over my yard already . Young birds are almost ready to start laying now. Young ducks are starting to lay now. We are eating lots of small duck eggs now!

 

[rosemarythyme]

My flock is staggered in ages so that helps keep up some level of production. Still, I save up eggs starting Sept/Oct or so (depending on ages of birds in the flock) and that usually is enough to take me to January at least. I think last year I had to buy 1 dozen during the winter, the year before that, maybe 4 dozen (I didn't save enough!)

 

[Fallenone05]

Mine slow a little but I like to give them meat bird feed during molt. That extra protein REALLY helps with feather growth and egg laying, at least in my experience.

I also don't use as many eggs as I used to since I got chickens. I keep a dozen for myself and it takes me a while to use those. The rest get sold and I've got a wait-list.