This doesn't look like moulting to me--terrible

[chickendreams24]

My first molt experience was one of my sweet old English game bantams and it was the middle of last summer. She was so shut down and off I thought she was sick. She was just mopey and miserable. It wasn't until I picked her up I saw she was covered in pin feathers. I had thankfully read about molt and even though I was shocked she was molting so early at barely a year old I then knew she was okay. But I still hovered like a worried mother until she perked up.

My oegb look hilarious when they lose their tails. Lol

 

[MsBrahma]

Thank you all SO MUCH for your words of advice and reassurance! I am glad not only that she will survive this, but that she is not harboring a dread disease. I flinch to look at her; looks ready for the meat aisle in Kroger. Never saw anything like this in a moult. With weather turning cooler, I feel for her, but it is still not going below 40 degrees at night. We have a snug coop. So I guess she'll survive the nakedness. I will try to giver her some extra protein if I can keep the others from hogging it. This chicken is not our most assertive with food, also she's always been hardest to approach, not tolerant of being picked up. Maybe I can separate her at release time and give her food separately. Thanks again for the encouragement! I knew I could get some good feedback here.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you all SO MUCH for your words of advice and reassurance! I am glad not only that she will survive this, but that she is not harboring a dread disease. I flinch to look at her; looks ready for the meat aisle in Kroger. Never saw anything like this in a moult. With weather turning cooler, I feel for her, but it is still not going below 40 degrees at night. We have a snug coop. So I guess she'll survive the nakedness. I will try to giver her some extra protein if I can keep the others from hogging it. This chicken is not our most assertive with food, also she's always been hardest to approach, not tolerant of being picked up. Maybe I can separate her at release time and give her food separately. Thanks again for the encouragement! I knew I could get some good feedback here.

Sometimes, if you can, enticing them to a separate area to give the extra protein works. I have a pen that I can close off to when needed. Handling them during molt is painful, so I don't do that unless it is absolutely necessary.

Another thing you can do is just make eggs for everybody I use several bowls for treats that I space out in the runs so there is not so much squabbling. My molting girl is in the top of the pecking order so if she wants a treat bowl to herself to pick through...well, lets just say the others let her have it - she may be molting but her stink eye works just fine.

 

[MsBrahma]

Good idea--I have some frozen egg whites leftover from cooking with yolks. I can feed them those. Cooked, of course.

 

[rebrascora]

As the others have said, she is having a very hard moult, but there is something else that concerns me a little and it may just be the camera angle, but her abdomen looks to be pretty swollen.... When she roosts tonight, can you very gently feel it between her legs and compare to one of your other girls. A swollen abdomen would cause her to walk awkwardly too to it may tie in with what you are seeing.

 

[MsBrahma]

I will definitely check that. She does look odd, but it is hard to know what's a "normal" shape when the body is normally completely obscured by feathers. I took many photos of her, but this was the clearest... Like I said, she always keeps her distance, unlike most of the others.

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is a good article about molting:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2011/12/molting-what-is-it-and-how-to-help.html

 

[MsBrahma]

Thank you, I'll check it out!

 

[rebrascora]

I appreciate that those feathers can hide a lot of irregularity and if you haven't seen them naked before, it is difficult to know what is normal and what isn't, but you can usually feel a significant difference even if one is feathered and the other isn't. She just looks pretty bloated at that back end and I would be concerned that there may be something going on with her reproductive system. Do you have any idea when she last laid an egg?.... difficult when you have others of the same breed, I know!

 

[firerunner]

Bazinga my Leghorn molts like that! Worried me to the first time