Why Are My Chickens Loosing Feathers? (Molting)
Our older chickens look rather sad this time of year. At the end of summer I find feathers collecting in the corners of the coop and stuck to the chicken wire in the run. Just like the trees shed their autumn leaves, the chickens are shedding down the year's feathers and looking pretty straggly. And so begins the seasonal molt.
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What is Molt?
Molt is the process (for all birds not just chickens) where they shed their feathers and grow new feathers. Despite what your birds may look like, this is a healthy, natural, seasonal occurrence and usually not an indication of any serious problems.
There are different degrees of molt. Some years your chickens may only lose a few tail feathers (hardly noticeable, soft molt), and other years your chickens may be bald (hard molt).
Pin Feathers
As they come out of molt, you will notice little pin feathers starting to poke through the skin. These are stiff, pointy tubes made of keratin (like fingernails). They remind me of shoe lace ends. The feather will grow from the pin feather shaft.
Pin feathers have a blood supply (the pink area, as seen on light colored birds). This area is tender while the chicken is growing its feathers back. It's similar to the quick in a dog or cat's nail/claw. It's especially sensitive if it's pushed backwards against the direction of growth. So try not to handle your chickens where they are growing feathers back.
3 Types of Molt
1. The Growing Year Molts
Young chickens go through several molts as they become adults. They molt their down fluff and begin the process of growing real feathers when they are around 2 weeks old, earlier, as the wings develop. The last area to grow real feathers is the head.
Then chicks will molt again as their adult feathers begin to come in. This is when your teenage chicks begin to look like smaller versions of their adult self. Their plumage will look like a typical example of the breed.
Usually in the chicken's first year, they do not have a late summer, early autumn molt.
2. Fall Molt
In a chicken's second year, it will begin its yearly cycle of shedding feathers in late summer/early autumn when they see shorter days. This is so it will have fresh, healthy plumage going into winter for that cold weather. The chicken will shed any broken or less-than-ideal feathers and grow new down feathers (under feathers to insulate against the cold), and they will re-grow primary feathers (to block out the wind and damp).
3. Stress Molt
Sometimes chickens will molt as a result of stress. New flock members going through pecking order (typically worse if not given enough space to get away), traveling, illness, periods of over heat, or lack of food and water can bring on an out-of-season molt. In this case, all efforts must be made to make the bird more comfortable so it can grow back healthy plumage.
Other reasons chickens lose feathers:
Feather pecking: This is mostly caused by chickens establishing pecking order. You will see bald patches where the head and neck feathers should be. This is from other chickens trying to establish dominance by pecking their coop mates.
Over mating: If you keep too many roosters per hen (1 to 12 ratio is a nice balance) sometimes your hens will show patches of bare skin. When the rooster mounts the hen, he holds on to the feathers on the back of her head with his beak. Many times these feathers will be plucked out if she is being mounted over and over. She can also lose feathers under her wings and on her back from the rooster climbing up on her.
Feather eating: If chickens are lacking protein in their diet they will sometimes turn to feather eating to make up for the missing nutrients. They may pluck feathers from their own body, or the feathers from their coop mates.
Broody hen: When a hen goes broody (is ready to sit on a clutch of eggs) she will pluck out her chest feathers so the eggs come in contact with her warm skin. This is called a broody patch.
Vent Gleet: This is a fungal infection in the vent. The most common reason vent gleet occurs is due to dirty drinking water, and other unsanitary conditions. The feathers around and under the vent will become dirty, stringy and crusty. The chicken may pluck these dirty feathers or they can fall out on their own leaving a bald patch at the rear end.
Lack of Eggs
During the molt you might notice that where you once had delicious fresh eggs, you now have old feathers. Chickens stop laying while they are molting. They instead, direct the protein that they would have been using for egg production, to regrow feathers.
What do you need to do about molting chickens?
Nothing...Honestly, a lot of times you don't have to do anything. This loss of feathers is a natural part of the chicken's seasonal life. It's a healthy, natural, normal process. And while your chickens might look kinda pathetic for a couple weeks-to a couple of months. They're fine. They will grow their feathers back and return to egg laying.
Sometimes the molt lapses into the shorter daylight hours of late Autumn. Daylight hours directly affects egg laying. In this case you may not get eggs again until spring unless supplemental lighting is provided. (I will cover this topic in a future post)
If you want to give your chickens an extra boost, or get them laying again more quickly, then read on.
Give your chickens a boost during the molting process.
The key nutrient to getting your chickens to grow back feathers more quickly, and to start laying again is... protein.
There's a few different ways you can do that.
1. Cut out scratch grains.
I don't feed our chickens scratch grains any time of year because it's basically junk food for chickens. They may enjoy it, but it takes away from their protein intake and will not prove beneficial to laying nor feather production.
2. You can up their protein intake by introducing a high-protein feed
If your chickens are on Layer Feed (16% protein) you can mix in some Grower Feed (18% protein) or an All Stock Blend Feed (22%-26%), to give them some extra protein. It's a good idea to mix it in gradually so as to not upset the digestive system. You can add a probiotic anytime you're making feed changes. I like Multi-Species Probios and have used it for years with great success.
Nutrena makes a specific feed designed to grow back feathers. Nutrena Nature-Wise Feather Fixer is available on Amazon as we've never seen it in any of our local feed stores. It's an 18% protein feed with Vitamin D and minerals to help feather growth. I've been wanting to try this feed for years and do a review.
3. Feed meal-worms
Live mealworms are best, but dehydrated will also work. Mealworms are one of those things where the more you buy, the less expensive they are. We have over 40 chickens so It's cost effective for me to buy larger bags. Grubblies is a good brand that I've used before. But if you shop around at your feed store, especially in the wild bird seed department, you can sometimes find better deals.
4. Scramble some eggs
You might be low on eggs if your chickens are molting, but eggs are actually the perfect food to feed to chickens. Just make sure to scramble them, or disguise them (like mixing them into the daily feed ration). Some say that feeding raw eggs to chickens can lead to egg eating (where the chicken lays an egg, then breaks it and eats the contents.) Once that laying hen starts breaking and eating her own eggs you can have a hard time getting her to stop.
5. Black oil sunflower seeds
Sunflower seeds provide extra proteins and fats which help grow beautiful feathers. Chickens will use these nutritious oils to preen their feathers. Preening is the natural process of taking oil from the preen gland at the base of the tail and coating the feathers with it. The oil from the preen gland is antimicrobial and keeps feathers healthy.
On top of feeding more protein, amino acid nutrition is key to getting all that protein processed properly. We've found that using a vitamin and mineral supplement with added amino acids can really boost the recovery time of our backyard chickens. Rooster Booster Poultry Cell has worked well for us and is fairly inexpensive.
After your chickens are done molting, they will be at their most-beautiful! Come Mid-late Autumn you will have back your fluffy, shiny and fresh chickens in all their glorious plumage! They will have quality feathers to protect them through the cold months.
