Some molting facts:

[chickengeorgeto]

Hens molt in response to the length of daylight. Molting is very hard on a hens health because she is growing a brand new set of feathers.

It is best that you not catch, handle, or interact in a physical way with your chickens when they are molting because they are very sore and feverish at this time. When molting starts a hen or rooster that was a sweetheart the rest of the year may completely change.

For those of you who love to pet your chickens I seriously doubt that your chickens love for you to pet them when they molt. A teaspoonful of canned dog food everyday or every other day is a good way to help your hen cope.

During the molt a chicken is covered to one degree or the other with blood feathers a.k.a. pen feathers. these feathers are full of blood that is needed to nourish and grow the new plumage. You can do great harm to a molting chicken during the molt if you break, damage, or breach the quills of these blood feathers. Theoretically it is possible for a molting chicken to bleed out if it has damaged pen or blood feathers. If a chicken has a damaged feather the bird will grow a good new replacement feather if you will only pull the damaged feather shaft out. This will also stop bleeding from damaged pen feathers.

 

[sumi]

Good reminder and info, thanks for sharing! Both our hens are molting hard right now and I keep reminding my son not to cuddle or pick up his hen for these reasons.

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

Excellent info and advice!

 

[Shadrach]

I've got some moulting here. They're very pissy!
Good point worth mentioning but I doubt the cuddlers will read this.
So much of the good advice gets lost in the threads. Why don't you turn this into a short article then people could just link to it?

 

[aart]

During the molt a chicken is covered to one degree or the other with blood feathers a.k.a. pen pin feathers. these feathers are full of blood that is needed to nourish and grow the new plumage. You can do great harm to a molting chicken during the molt if you break, damage, or breach the quills of these blood feathers. Theoretically it is possible for a molting chicken to bleed out if it has damaged pen or blood feathers. If a chicken has a damaged feather the bird will grow a good new replacement feather if you will only pull the damaged feather shaft out. This will also stop bleeding from damaged pen feathers.

Have had a bleeding pin feather, nothing would stop the bleeding until I fully plucked it out using a pair of hemostats.