Florence and The Molt

Poor Flo... she looks like this right now:

She looks awful. Her feathers are completely jacked up... well, the ones that are still there, anyway. I've been trying to get photos of her for a couple of days, but she seems to know how bad she looks and won't hold still if I come anywhere near her with a camera. I can't say I blame her, really... I wouldn't, either.

Molting varies from chicken to chicken, it seems. Some of my birds- the Americaunas, specifically, just lose a few feathers at a time, and simply look a little ragged for a couple of weeks. Last year, the Barred Rock lost almost all of her head and neck feathers at once, but that was pretty much it for her. Historically, Flo just loses her poofy nether feathers, and runs around with a bare bottom for a couple of weeks while things are growing back in. This year, however, she's jettisoned easily a quarter, if not a third, of her feathers altogether. She's got a strip missing down the back of her neck, as well as a matching one on the front. Her rump is mostly bare, her tail is long gone, and I've even found primary flight feathers scattered around. She looks moth-eaten, to be nice about it. (But not so bad that I'm knitting chicken sweaters, or anything.)

It's completely normal (however abnormal it may look) and is something that happens to chickens around this time of year. Personally, I think that seems like poor timing, but I'm sure there has to be some genetic or evolutionary reason for ditching all the outerwear just as colder weather rolls in. If I had to guess, I'd say it likely has something to do with ditching external parasites, or maybe just trading out the old feathers for newer ones, before the weather gets really bad. That's just my supposition, though... I haven't found any definitive answers, yet.

Along with molting, comes a cessation of egg laying. Flo hasn't laid an egg in at least two weeks, because her body is putting energy into making new feathers -fast- as opposed to making eggs. So, if you have a chicken that's molting, make sure you're getting extra protein to them, to make the process go as smooth as possible. Once her feathers are back in, she'll start laying again- but at a much reduced rate - maybe one or two eggs a week, now that the dark days are here. Since the egg-laying cycle is governed by hours of daylight, chickens naturally decrease production in the winter.

Commercial egg producers (and some home chicken keepers) use supplemental lighting in the coop to keep eggs coming through the winter. We don't do that here- I believe that if a system is designed with a built in rest period, there's probably a good reason for that and it should be honored. I stockpile eggs when everyone is laying daily, and if we need to ration them towards the end... well, so be it. I'm not running a sweatshop, after all. Besides, now that the girls aren't foraging as much, the eggs aren't as awesome as they are in the spring and summer months. (They're still great; much better than store bought, though!)

What's happening in your chicken run- are your feathered friends molting now, too?

Houston, We Have a Broody

It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose: Flo, our alpha hen, went broody in late June. For those who aren't familiar with the term, it means that a hen is ready to hatch out some eggs, and she will take up residence in a nest box for approximately 21 days- regardless of whether or not she has eggs to sit on. She also stops laying during this period of time, and if you're really lucky (like us) you get to watch as your previously normal hen turns into something akin to Godzilla with feathers.

Things started out normal enough: Flo eased in to being broody over a few days; the only clue being that she was heading off to the nest box in the evenings a little early, instead of getting up on the roost with the other chickens. After a couple evenings of that, though, she went full-on and wouldn't leave the nest box except for once a day to eat, drink and poop. Then she'd take her cranky self back inside, and sit on her empty nest again until the next day. Thinking I might be interested in getting some fertilized eggs if she does this again, I was content to leave her be and let this run it's course.

Alex wasn't so sure... He was worried about her, he said. The weather was supposed to get hot, and he'd read something on the internet about broody hens overheating and dying. I tried explaining that we live in the northwest, and that 80 isn't really *hot* by most standards. Married folks, you know how this goes: sometimes, it's better if you just roll with it. So, after 2 weeks of being allowed to do her own thing, we started picking fights with the chicken.

For our first try, we just took her out of the nest box. She'd protest; puffing her feathers up and clucking at us. She'd wander around for a bit, and as soon as we weren't looking, she'd run back inside.

Our next trick was to take her out, and block off her access to the nest box. Not so easily put off, she went to a different nest. (Really? How did we not see that coming?)

Time to get serious. We tried closing off access to the coop altogether when she was out. This just made her angry- like The Incredible Hulk angry- she'd scratch around in the grass for a few minutes pretending to be normal, and then run at the door shrieking like a banshee with all of her feathers standing on end. Then she'd walk away like nothing happened, only to flip out and try again later. I think I lasted four rounds of that before I gave up and opened the door again.

We even went so far as to try a cool-water bath. You've heard the saying "madder than a wet hen", right? Well let me tell you: it is 100% accurate. After her dunking, she tore around the yard screeching at the other chickens, then me, the dogs, even the fence... you name it. I actually saw her hop 3 feet straight up in the air, just to kick the gate to the chicken run. Flo's a big gal, so for her to catch any air is no small accomplishment.

I gave up at that point. Alex continued to take her out in the evenings sometimes, but nothing seemed to help. It wasn't until the beginning of September that she finally started to snap out of it... and now, she's molting. Poor thing can't seem to catch a break. Next year, I'm getting some fertilized eggs for her to set on, since she's proven to be so determined. But for now, she's getting extra protein in her diet to help her through the molt and so she regains some of the weight she lost over the broody time.