What does chicken molting look like?

[BinaryChicken]

my bantam wyandotte hen is missing some feathers on her chest and around her body. She does not have lice or mites. A lot of places just have the short stems of the feather and no feathers. is this molting?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Probably, especially this time of year.

Here are some extreme examples of molting. This shows how bad it can get. Actually I consider these hens good molters. They are fast molters and will get back to laying pretty soon. Some chickens are slow molters and may take several months to finish the process.

Molting Contest
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=394556

Here are a couple of links that talk about molting. There is some good info here. One site even has a drawing.

Mississippi State describes molting
http://msucares.com/poultry/management/poultry_feathers.html

Kansas State feather loss
http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/mf2308.pdf

Sometimes the molting process is really slow. They just lose a few feathers at a time, so few and so slowly it is hard to even tell they are molting just by looking. Often the way you know they are molting is that you see extra feathers laying around.

 

[BinaryChicken]

thnx

 

[Happy Chooks]

Yes, that sounds like molting.

Here's another thread that shows molting.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/580915/for-the-new-folks-that-havent-experienced-a-molt-yet/0_50