Why do my chickens never molt?

[Guinea Goonie]

Not all breeds do a hard type of molt.

Many just loose feathers continually and the pin feathers come in to replace them.

I have noticed a good deal of feathers in the barn and it is not just the chickens that are losing them. The Guineas seem to loose a lot of little feathers.

My roo lost his entire butt feahters and now he has a nice crop of tail feathers comming in.

 

[Chickn chick 46]

Last year all my hens went through a hard molt, one of my Australorps went into the coop one night and came out the next morning with almost no feathers, poor thing. They all seem to go through it around this time of year when the day light hours are getting shorter.

This year only one of my hens, a BR, is showing any real signs of molting, she has no feathers on her neck, but I can see the new ones coming in. I know they are all in a molt b/c of all the feathers around and only one hen out of the 7 is laying an egg for me, God bless her! These girls are around 4 yrs. old and I've been upping their protein a bit to help with the feather growth. I may put them on turkey feed for the winter.

 

[hinkjc]

Moulting is triggered by declining daylight. If you provide extra light, the birds will never moult. Birds can moult very slowly and you'll never notice it or they can moult very fast and will look like a porcupine with all the new feather quills very noticeable.

 

[sunshine2378]

Do chickens have to mold is it okay if they don't does it hurt them if they don't?

 

[sunshine2378]

Do chickens have to molt does it hurt them if they don't?

 

[Sarahmorgan]

In 11 years of raising chickens, we've never had one look like it was molting. Why?

Is it because we have such mild winters here?

What triggers a molt?

All of my chickens are about one year old. Some I got from Murray McMurray hatchery and some from a local feed store. Not one of them has ever molted or even lost hardly any feathers, is this normal? I have seven barred Plymouth rocks and five Cornish cross. We were supposed to eat them, but no one can kill a chicken, so they have become great laying hens. They actually lay better than the Plymouth rocks and lay larger eggs, that was a surprise.

 

[saysfaa]

All of my chickens are about one year old. Some I got from Murray McMurray hatchery and some from a local feed store. Not one of them has ever molted or even lost hardly any feathers, is this normal? I have seven barred Plymouth rocks and five Cornish cross. We were supposed to eat them, but no one can kill a chicken, so they have become great laying hens. They actually lay better than the Plymouth rocks and lay larger eggs, that was a surprise.

Typically, chickens that hatched in the spring do their first adult molt at about 18 months.