What's this about molting?

[Imp]

I've never had a chicken go bare. Once one lost her tail feathers. Other than that just will find a few feathers for about a week.

Imp- Chickens are weird

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
And you're just now figuring that out Impy? I've been saying that every day for the past two years.

 

[Imp]

Quote:
And you're just now figuring that out Impy? I've been saying that every day for the past two years.

Yeah! But you say lots of things. Am I supposed to pay attention?

I guess I can answer that myself.

Imp-Sometimes I'm a little slow.

 

[rileysgranny]

I noticed A LOT of black feathers in the pen on Tuesday evening and couldn't figure out where they came from. Then, last evening, DH noticed one of my black sex-links looked like something or someone had pulled most of the feathers out of her breast area. When she turned sideways I noticed feathers missing all over. She seems to be the only one moulting, at least as of last night. This will be my first moulting experience-I've only had chickens a year this month. I had noticed that I wasn't getting the full number of eggs that I usually get, but with the weather changing I thought that might be part of it. I guess I was wrong!

No picture today, but I'll get some tonight and add them to this post.

Edited to add picture:

Not the hen referred to above, but the second one to start molting. The other one has most of her feathers back now.

 

[StupidBird]

thank you for posting those photos. I'd have panicked over my birds instead of thinking - first adult molt.

 

[Chickn chick 46]

They sure do look ragged when molting! One of my hens will go to roost one nite with full feathers and the next morning come out of the hen house almost naked. She drops them in a pile over nite, poor thing.

 

[rileysgranny]

These are pics of my "Buffy" who started molting about a week ago. She is usually the dominant hen, but since she started to molt she has been hiding in the coop and staying in the pen when the rest go out to free range. Poor thing, she looks awful. She's lost the last tail feather and many more of her body feathers since I took these pics last weekend.

We also noticed she had scaly leg mites (see her right foot) so we treated all the chickens. I just cleaned out the coop before I noticed them, but now I'll have to get in there and REALLY clean it. I felt bad that I hadn't seen them before, but since the time changed I don't get home til after DH puts them in for the night and it's still dark when I leave in the morning.