premature molting?

[calichooks]

I have a buff brahma girl aged 9 months old that started laying september 24th and stopped laying november 10th. it was really odd because she’s young, but we didn’t know what to think of it. came outside to clean the coop and noticed she looked a lil scragglier than before. turns out pin feathers were all down her neck and when you pushed her feathers back you could see new ones coming back up already. i didnt know chickens molted so early on? she’s our first girl under a year to molt.
i don’t think this is right, or at least i’ve never heard of it before. she’s acting fine, talking to us and eating and is healthy, but her age at her first molt is worrying me. is this normal?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

If it's just around her head and neck than it's a partial neck molt. I see in in a few birds in both the fall and the spring. A full molt will involve the wings and tail feather. A partial will not. I assume it's done to refresh a few feathers.

 

[NatJ]

Chickens molt in the fall, except that chicks molt a bunch of times as they grow up.

If a pullet matures and starts to lay in the summer, her body has to make a choice as fall comes: either she molts that fall, or keeps laying and waits to molt until the next fall. Either pattern is fairly normal, although some breeds will tend one way or the other, and being a few weeks older or younger can sometimes change which way it goes.

And as oldhenlikesdogs points out, it might be a partial molt rather than a full one.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It isn't that unusual for birds that hatched that early in the year. While the norm is for the first serious molt to come second autumn, that isn't always the case. I hatch most of the year and I have several birds that hatched in April that are molting now. That is a bit unusual but most of my birds that hatch in January and February almost always molt in their first Autumn.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This article talks about the order of molt and some more things. The feathers are lost from the head first, followed in order by those on the neck, breast, body, wings, and tail.

http://extension.msstate.edu/content/molting-laying-hens

Some pullets skip the molt their first winter, some don't. Looks like you got one that did not skip it.