Winter molts

SLA

Songster
Jan 15, 2021
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It is late January, temps in the teens, and one of my girls - 11 months old - started her first molt. Ugh! This is our third pullet to molt, but the timing of this one couldn’t be worse. I’m concerned that the feather loss might be due to something else. She isn’t bullied, but I noticed that my head girl will pull a feather out when it’s sticking out at a weird angle. I wonder if she’s hurting or helping!
 
Yes, when I witness it I firmly move the culprit away with a loud “no”. I have noticed that she was only pulling a feather that was sticking out in an odd way (probably it was starting to fall out). The molter girl had to deal with 1degree F this morning.
 
I have a 10 month old molting right now too. Her pin feathers are just coming in ;) we had temps feeling like -20 deg F with no heat in the coop and she did ok ;)
That's encouraging. They all seem to be doing fine...even the molter. I'm finally seeing the pin feathers and hope she's starting to grow the darn things back.
 
-20F a couple weeks ago when one of our 9 hens started to molt. She has been hiding in a nesting box most of the time since. She seems to be doing ok (certainly is leaving evidence in the box that she is eating well).

My bigger concern is that we are down to one egg per day from the 9 hens. I don't recall egg production dropping off this much is previous colder winters. At least 8 were hatched in Feb 2020 so are chicomflu hens.
 

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