Molting Season: Getting all Feathered Up for Winter
The arrival of fall is marked by shorter days, and shorter days means less daylight. That reduced daylight triggers the annual molt in backyard chicken flocks. Each fall, starting when chickens are about 18 months old, they will lose their feathers and grow nice, shiny new ones in preparation for winter.
What is the Chicken Molting Process?
Over the course of spring and summer, feathers can break, get dirty, fall out, or be plucked out by other flock members, all leading to them not being in the tip-top shape they need to be for winter. A nice new set of feathers will ensure the bird can keep itself warm through the cold months.
While the length of the molt varies widely between various birds, from weeks to even months, the pattern of the molt always stays the same. The molt starts at the neck, moves down to the back, then to the breast and wings, and then finishes with the tail.
Hens and roosters both molt, and the hens generally stop laying eggs at some point throughout the molting process, while roosters can become impotent. Which makes sense, nobody wants to be raising young ones while they’re working hard to grow their feathers and stay warm!
You may notice that your better layers will tend to molt earlier and faster, while poor layers may slowly drop feathers for months. Some chickens seem to lose all their feathers almost overnight, while in others it’s barely noticeable that they’re molting at all. Generally, you won’t see any bare patches during a molt. New feather shafts push out the old feathers, so you should be able to see the new waxy shaft already poking through the skin surface anywhere feathers have dropped. These new feather shafts are filled with blood which dries up as the feathers break free from the shaft and unfurl.
What Do I Need to Do During Molting Season?
The good news is, the molting season doesn’t require much work from you, if any at all! Growing in feathers is probably a little uncomfortable, so it may be best to leave the chickens alone and not be handling or picking them up during this time. Their demeanors can also change during molting season, so you may even think a couple are sick if they are hiding in a corner or not moving much, but this is normal.
Something that can be beneficial during the molting season is packing a little more protein in the flock’s diet by switching to a higher protein feed like Home Fresh Better Feather. Better Feather is an 18% protein, high-energy, calcium-fortified grain diet formulated specifically to support feather growth and egg production in layers as they go through a molt. It’s a complete, balanced diet, so no additional nutrient supplementation is required.
Of course, your flock will always appreciate a few extra snacks such as sunflower seeds, dried mealworms, or grubs this time of year!
It can often feel like a race against the clock during fall. You can expect to see dropped feathers in late August and early September, and you may worry the chickens won’t finish up by the time the temperatures drop below freezing. But somehow, it all works out and they head into winter with a new set of beautiful, glossy feathers.