Chicken Molting

Chickens naturally molt (lose their feathers) annually. For a new chicken keeper, it can look like something is wrong with your birds. I hope the following provides you some confidence that your chickens are doing just fine!

Chickens molt because their feathers are a kind of wear-item on their body. Once a feather is damaged, it doesn't just fix itself. Instead, the old battered feather is dropped and a brand spanking new one will take its place. Chickens who have lost their feathers from infighting, rooster's attention, or whatever other reason can regrow those feathers as long as the feather follicles in the skin are not damaged.

Chickens generally experience their first molt somewhere around 16 months of age, give or take a couple months. Then annually, usually around autumn, they will experience an annual molt. A note, if chickens are stressed, for whatever reason, they can experience a partial or unseasonably early molt. A molting period can last anywhere from three weeks to over a dozen weeks depending on the bird. It appears to me that larger framed, more fully feathered birds take the longest time.

The chicken will start losing their feathers and their egg production will drop. Molting is a protein-related process and the chicken's body will prioritize feather production over egg development. New feathers will start to appear, looking like a keratin covered quill which with time will unravel into a brand new feather.

There isn't really anything out of the normal required out of a keeper to do during their chicken's molting cycle. Some recommendations include providing a little more additional protein to the birds ration to ensure they have what they need for good feather development.

What else should be known about molting? Have any pictures or stories?

I am too embarrassed for our girls to photograph them when in full moult, they look moth eaten and have bald patches all over.

The weather is just starting to warm up and treated the girls to an extra protein boost of pressured cooked wild goat meat yesterday - the ribs and neck were chopped into pieces that would fit into the pot and stripped off the meat.

The bones get collected and tossed into our wood burner.

Our kitchen scraps buried in a pile in the chook run and I turn them over whenever more is added uncovering the worms. The girls come running when they see me with the kitchen scrap bin.

There are lots of worms in the run under the wood mulch for them to supplement their protein intake.