Molting Is For the Birds

There are so many things about raising chickens I feel like nobody (books, blogs, articles, chicken keeping groups...) can fully prepare you for.

Molting is one of those things.

I mean you can read about how rough a molt is on a bird, but then when you actually see your sweet little feathered beebees explode before your very eyes, slowly becoming a sickly-emaciated-drowned-rat-zombie looking version of themselves, suddenly stop laying eggs, run from you like the plague, and start acting like super grumpy old goats... well, how can you possibly be prepared for all that?

These pictures were taken on the upswing of The Great Molt of 2018. At one point they both had zero tail feathers, and were all tuft-y and full of porcupine quills. No more fluffy butts... it looked like their backsides had been in a pillow fight! - And our girls didn't even have it that bad compared to some I've seen.

We only have two molters left in our flock: Tillie and Pringle. 

Marilla, sadly, needed to be rehomed because she was being picked on during her molt. Granted, it did looking like she was growing a pile of sticks out her back, but the others couldn't resist constantly messing with them until they were all bloody. At her new home she unexpectedly passed away. I have since read that during molting season, their bodies are under such a huge amount of stress that a change of that magnitude can be simply too much for them to handle. 

Duly noted. :'-(

Fly high sweet Marilla. You were a smart and gentle leader of our little flock, and we all miss you.

Brooke also left us after a bout of impacted crop that I worked tirelessly on trying to resolve. After a week, we thought we were through the woods, she was back to nomal - horray! Then one day, right before we were set to go on a short weekend trip, she took mysteriously ill. Our local chicken angel said she would watch her for the weekend (we couldn't leave a sick bird with our house sitter), and we weren't even sure she would pull through... She also, had just started molting. - Still touch and go at this point, she's alive, but we won't be able to take her back even if she recovers because we don't have a quarantine tractor anymore. We'll be working on that in the spring... It's something we didn't know just how much we'd need.

Annnnnnyway: back to molting.

So, everybody said birds don't molt their first year. Right. Our older girls were born the last week of January, and all of them (well, we don't know about Muriel who's living the country life now) did indeed molt. 

Josephine had a soft (juvenile?) molt about a month ago, and she's the only one still earning her keep around here: laying an egg every other day at least. Mrs. Rachel was a spring chicken, so she is still happily in full fluff, and doesn't understand what all the others are going on about.

Each girl pretty predictably stopped laying right about 2 weeks before their molt began in earnest. None of their molting patterns were the same. They all lost and gained in different places in different orders. We upped their protein to 22% (meat bird rations) to help with their feather re-growth, and give them mealworms as an occasional high-protein treat.

Just this week (almost two months in), we finally seemed to take a turn for the better. Pringle, who is usually pretty social, has been avoiding me at. all. costs. But a few days ago she started back her silly little habit of grooming me while I'm cleaning out the run, AND she started to squat again. I'm secretly hopeful that means she's thinking about laying, but I know full well she may be on sabbatical until spring. Tillie still bolts in the other direction if I so much as look at her, but she did start her molt significantly later than Pring, so she's still got a bunch of pin feathers coming in. I also caught them all enjoying a good dust bath together for the first time in weeks!! Good sign!

(Tillie's full neck and poofy cheeks pre-molt)

(and during molt)

Bedtime drama seemed to amp up during molt too, and Tillie has taken to wanting to sleep in the nesting boxes every night (chicken sleep regression?). We have to chase her out and back up to the roost several times - hoping that when she's fully back to herself, she'll stop with all that young bird nonsense. Geesh.

Hope all of that helps those of you yet to experience your first molt know some of what to expect. It's a rough season for the girls, but it's gotta end sometime, right!? Fingers crossed we're nearing the other side!