please help! my hen is losing feathers around her neck :(

[staceydanny]

Hi can anyone help us as this is our first chickens and we are unsure on why one of our hens is losing feathers around her neck she is the boss of the girls, we have 3 altogether one of our hens is broody at the moment and she is sitting on 6eggs and should hatch any time soon. We are not sure if she has something wrong with her or she has been fighting with our broody? It seems to only be her that has lost these feathers the other hens are looking fine this is a picture of her thank you

 

[lydiagirl99]

I'm no expert but that's what happens to my girls every year. She may just be molting, haha. Completely normal for all chickens. Just getting rid of old feathers and growing new ones. Sometimes they almost look completely naked necked

Quite funny, but all the feathers eventually grow back. I'd wait to see feedback from people with more experience but that's what it seems to be.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

How old is she? It's looks like a molt. If she's under a year it might be a partial molt, or a neck molt. If she's older than a year it will be the yearly full body molt.

 

[staceydanny]

oh that's great news thank you both so much she is 18months old were new to all this so i like to make sure there ok as don't want them to suffer in anyway just because we were unsure... we have also just been out to check on our broody hen and have spotted a chick which has hatched so very excited and now looking up information on what to do next thanks again

 

[lydiagirl99]

Awe, yaayyy ! If you take pictures I'd love to see.

 

[staceydanny]

we sure will as soon as she will let us have a look we will be snapping away thank you!

 

[donrae]

18 months is the prime age for a good hard molt. They drop a LOT of feathers this time of year and regrow in nice new ones for winter. They usually take a break from laying, also, as all the energy goes to feather growth. It's a natural cycle for the hen to follow, she'll do this each fall.

There are some threads about how molting birds look, it can be pretty ugly. Here's one of my previous ladies...poor thing.

 

[staceydanny]

Thank you for your information now you have said about they stop laying my husband said he did notice that she didn't lay yesterday....your lady is very cute