All About Chicken Molting
A chicken has roughly around 8,000 feathers ! When you think about the amount of nutrients it will require to regrow new plumage, you can reasonably see why just before Autumn would be a good time to start incorporating some added protein and great natural sources of vitamins (I’m not a supporter of synthetic vitamins for animals as most are toxic over time)
What Are The Different Molts?
You’ll notice that some of your hens will seem to molt very gradually while others will be so dramatic and unsightly that quite frankly, if you’re new to chickens, will be enough to have you assuming they are terribly ill.
These are called
• Soft •Medium •Hard molts
What Determines The Type Of Molt?
YOUR LOWEST PRODUCERS will typically soft molt.
Their body has to work a little less on creating shell + egg within and can focus more on plumage
YOUR HIGH PRODUCERS - you guessed it, will go through more of a dramatic medium / hard moly and will typically be the one who stops producing for a time.
Now, it’s speculated that molting is the a way that the hens body naturally gives the reproductive system a break. However, since I personally make it a goal to focus on top nutrition for my animals, I’ve noticed that most of my birds will go through a soft or medium molt and rarely have had chickens who go through such a hard molt, as to be concerned. I hardly have any of my hens completely stop laying throughout the winter even without the use of artificial lighting ((which we do not use)
Patterns Of Molt
Science will tell you that hens will drop feathers in a pattern starting from top to bottom or head to tail. Don’t be alarmed if this isn’t the case with one or possibly all of your hens. I have two Easter Eggers who loose feathers all over the place in no particular order what so ever. From hen to hen, molting is very personal and is not determined by breed. For example, I have 4 Eester Eggers in total and two will molt text book while the other two as mentioned do not.
When Will Molt Begin
After your chicken reaches full maturity.
Common talk says that your chicken won’t molt their first year however, my first set of girls reached full maturity just before Autumn, or should I say, just in time for Autumnn and boy was that a shocker.
How Many Molts Will My Chicken Have?
One after full maturity. Unlike ducks who undergo several molts a year and even more depending on male or female, chickens only undergo the annual Fall Molt. This comes as a great guideline if you start to notice feather loss outside of this expected window.
How To Support Your Flock Before + During Molt
I talked about flock nutrition mid last week on my Instagram. A post titled “Chickens Are Omnivore”. For some reason there is a lot of controversy surrounding that topic with loads of folks out there looking to buy “vegetarian eggs” ? However, unless you are buying eggs from chickens who never consume frogs, lizards, bees, and other grub, than your chicken is not nor was never meant to be vegetarian. I won’t go into brow beating this topic however if you are interested in a full article on THAT subject, please comment down below to let me know.
ORGAN MEAT- The way I personally choose to support my chickens a month prior to the Autumn molt, is to up their minerals and vitamins by adding organ meat to their diet. Technically, I do this whenever I can (not just before the molt) and as a result I have a GREAT egg bounty as well as hardly seeing chickens struggling with molt. I noticed it tends to speed up the process a bit for them thanks to the high amount of protein as well as all of the bio availability of the minerals and vitamins through the use of NATURAL sources of these things.
