Spring molting?

[Solanacae]

A lady on my local FB chicken page said that chicks born in the fall will molt in the spring every year. I had never heard or read that before, but I’m relatively new to chickens and certainly don’t know everything even though I read a lot about them.
I do have a couple of fall chicks, so while I could wait over a year to find out if mine do molt in the spring, I’d love to have an answer sooner. Does anyone here have experience with this?

 

[JedJackson]

That is untrue. Molting happens in late summer and fall most of the time. When the hours of sunlight grow shorter at this time it triggers molting in chickens, just like the longer hours of sunlight in spring trigger egg production and the drive to mate.

 

[Solanacae]

That is untrue. Molting happens in late summer and fall most of the time. When the hours of sunlight grow shorter at this time it triggers molting in chickens, just like the longer hours of sunlight in spring trigger egg production and the drive to mate.

That’s what I thought, it seems like molting in the spring would be counterproductive. However, I’ve heard stranger things . . .

 

[raingarden]

At about twelve weeks they will start the second juvenile molt and they might not finish it until sixteen weeks old.

 

[JedJackson]

At about twelve weeks they will start the second juvenile molt and they might not finish it until sixteen weeks old.

Yes, that is true. That's the age when they start growing in their adult plumage. But after that it will be in fall that they molt.

 

[Solanacae]

At about twelve weeks they will start the second juvenile molt and they might not finish it until sixteen weeks old.

Yes, but that’s not what this lady was saying. For the length of winters we have around here, a fall chick would finish up their molt by February, which is still very much wintertime. This lady was claiming that adult chickens that were born in the fall would go through their annual molt every spring.

 

[3KillerBs]

At about twelve weeks they will start the second juvenile molt and they might not finish it until sixteen weeks old.

And that molt can look terrible too.

I went to take photos of Stripes, my Blue Cuckoo Marans cockerel who is up for sale, and he looks so ridiculous ratty right now that I had to put a note in the for sale post that he's in his juvenile molt.