Should you eat a chicken in molt?

We had our planned cull today but one of my hens decided to start molting. She looked and felt gross so I decided if she was that determined to live she could. I did wonder if it would effect the state of the meat at all.

Hmmm, I thought with ducks, at least, molting is the time to "harvest" them, as it makes plucking much easier. I have no idea about the taste, or if it's different with chickens, though!

I've raised chickens as long as I can remember and in all those years I can't remember ever butchering a chicken in molt. I just can't see how it was avoided though. I don't think it would make much difference in most cases, even though I've seen many times when some were showing signs of fever. Personally I would handle it pretty much the way you did, just postpone an individual's processing a few weeks.

Tracy Kuykendall wrote:I've raised chickens as long as I can remember and in all those years I can't remember ever butchering a chicken in molt. I just can't see how it was avoided though. I don't think it would make much difference in most cases, even though I've seen many times when some were showing signs of fever. Personally I would handle it pretty much the way you did, just postpone an individual's processing a few weeks.

We've had chickens for 4 years and this is the first ever we've had molt. I suppose that says something about the death rate of my chickens........

I find them WAY harder to pluck when molting, at least harder to end up with a clean carcass. The newly emerging feathers are really tough to get a hold of and get out. We stopped butchering molting chickens entirely.

Will Holland wrote:I find them WAY harder to pluck when molting, at least harder to end up with a clean carcass. The newly emerging feathers are really tough to get a hold of and get out. We stopped butchering molting chickens entirely.

That is interesting to know!