Moulting & Laying?

woodruffsdad

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My hens have been moulting for about 4 weeks now. They look a very sorry sight and they have also stopped laying.

My questions, as a relative newbie, are:

1) How long will the moult last?

2) How quickly will the girls grow a new set of feathers?

3) When can I expect them to start laying again?
 
Hi,

Can only give you advice from my own experience with banties. Mine have been in various degrees of a moult now for over 6 weeks. Two of my 4 birds have had 2 moults. The sablepoot has had the most major moult I have ever seen- practically bald. Took her approx 6-8 weeks to completely regrow her wings and tail. As for laying its normally around Valentines day.........when the lights levels are on the increase and getting a tad warmer. They just need to concentrate on keeping warm, and eating well to grow their new feathers. They do suffer bless, and egg laying is the last thing on their minds.

I give them some extra help in the form of vitamins in their water for a week, then a week of ACV. They have a tin of tuna or cat food, twice a week which is a good source of protein and mealworms too as an afternoon treat. Feathers are made up of protein and you may find they actually eat some of their own fallen feathers.

I sometimes give them a bowl of ready brek made up of warm water laced with mealworms and sunflower hearts, as some of the birds love it, plus it warms their crops/tummies.

Just a few ideas you could try.........try to avoid picking them up too as the pin feathers which come through are very painful.
 
My hens get daily, moulting or not, the following food: Layers pellets (in a hopper), soft sweetcorn, dry Swiss muesli, dried mealworms, salad leaves & mixed corn mixed with pigeon food containing maize and dried peas. I also give them occasional treats such as leftover cat food, crushed biscuits, stale cake and (very rarely) a small amount of bread etc.

Is this a fair diet? What about the pigeon food? It's mainly dried maize and dried peas and they seem to love it!
 
The time taken to complete a moult really depends on the individual chicken with good layers moulting quickly, poor layers taking longer, can be up to 3 months for some birds I have read. When they start laying will depend on breed, hybrids should start laying again once fully feathered with pure breeds starting in early spring. With regards to the diet I would drop the mealworms and maize for definite as both are fattening and fat hens don't lay eggs, Anything beyond the layers pellets and a few greens each week is unnecesary with the addition of some corn or oats in very cold weather only.
 
Totally agree with Dinosaw about dropping the maize, and I would also cut out the biscuits and cake (high in fat and sugar, both no-nos for chickens) also soft sweetcorn (which is an additional source of sugar as its more maize) Also I don't see the need for the pigeon food as it's yet more maize plus some quite fattening pulses. Bread is nutritionally poor for chickens and just fills them up when they should be eating a better balanced feed in their pellets.
Any ONE of these things could be given in VERY small quantities once a day, as treat, but all of them together as part of a mainstream diet will produce fat hens that won't be able to lay, because the fat gets laid down round their ovaries and oviducts. This can even cause fatal problems in their later life. Like us, chickens do like what for them is junk food - but like us, they're better off just being fed a plain nutritionally well- balanced diet. For hens, this is layers pellets plus greenstuff, as Dinosaw says.
Opinions differ about giving cat food or dog food - under some circumstances, eg when trying to get a poorly hen to eat more protein if she can't manage normal food, it can help to get a bird back on her feet. Even then, there are alternatives, such as chopped hard boiled egg. But again, as part of a normal diet, it's not desirable and certainly not necessary. Its best to just give a few mealworms as an extra protein boost, or as a treat, but even then, avoid an overdose!
 
Oh dear. I thought I was doing the right thing!

Elmwood's post above states that he/she gives his/her hens mealworms, tuna, cat food, Ready Brek, sunflower hearts etc. to aid with providing protein during the moult.

Could I go on giving my hens some of these "treats" but less often and in smaller quantities?

Can I give
 
A few of mine are moulting a little, one however is terribly scruffy and isn't laying at all. I only give them a few treats in in dying hour of light currently.
 
It's perfectly ok to give treats in small quantities occasionally woodruff, maybe a couple of times a week just don't make them part of the birds main diet. There are lots of healthy 'treats' you can give them too, mine love fruit including ripe pears, bananas and especially grapes, they race each other for grapes which is always fun to watch, also small amounts of natural yoghurt goes down very well and is good for them.
 
Is the odd apple (maybe 4 or 5 per week between 4 hens) too much? I give my girls the apples off of the lawn; the ones with bonus maggots in them...
 
I'd make sure she isn't being bullied off the feed Bickerton. If she isn't eating enough she will be very slow to feather up. All our birds went into a moult at the same time and we've had three as you describe in separate coops. The worst one was taken out into a secure rearing unit put alongside the main run. She started eating loads immediately, feathered up in a week and started laying a week later. Easy to spot with a TNN of course because the crop has no feathers over it!

We give ours apple as well Icemaiden. Each bird gets a quarter every week. So they get different treats at treat time every day. Sometimes cabbage, sometimes apples, usually grain and a rare treat last month was grapes -there is an untended vineyard up the road where the fruit is just left to rot.
 
What is TNN and Icemaiden please?

P.S. One of my hens seems to be feathering up much faster than the other and the odd thing is that she's a hen which was attacked by a fox about a year ago but escaped because Mr. Fox pulled out nearly all of her tail feathers! Could this episode have actually helped her?
 
woodruffsdad said:
Oh dear. I thought I was doing the right thing!

Elmwood's post above states that he/she gives his/her hens mealworms, tuna, cat food, Ready Brek, sunflower hearts etc. to aid with providing protein during the moult.

Could I go on giving my hens some of these "treats" but less often and in smaller quantities?

Hi,
Sorry to confuse- ALL MY HENS GET A QUALITY PELLET MIX DAILY.
As you can see from this post we all give and do what we think is best for our birds especially in times of stress/moulting demands. As Dinosaw says her hens love grapes and yoghurt- as indeed do mine. They probably have more grapes than anything else, and I have to quarter them to make sure even the smaller girls get some. My girls have a handful of ONE ITEM per afternoon before bedtime. They rarely have corn/maize. At the moment they are getting a small sprinkling of mealworms before bedtime. Once this week they have had a bowl of readybrek, and once this week so far, some sunflower hearts. I am big on vitamins and ACV though..... As MARIGOLD says hard boiled egg is a great alternative. This evening they will be having some hard boiled egg, mainly because I have a glut of eggs. So despite most of my birds in varying degrees of a moult, I still have the smallest D'anver hen, laying......She is also the bottom of the pecking order, and needs any help with regards to her food she can get.

I should have stated that they have one treat per day, not all of the above daily. It depends what is in the house, and how cold it is, plus who is looking sorry for themselves.

It is confusing, and as we know the best possible diet is a quality mixed pellet/mash food..........which mine have BUT they are so fussy....Out of interest we have just purchased a couple of "show" girls and wanted them on a diet for optimum health/breeding etc. So we changed all the birds food over a period of 6 weeks, from Garvo in favour of Fancy Feed. I can assure you my girls went on hunger strike. despite diluting their beloved Garvo with the new feed. We decided to change basically because they relished all the yummy bits in the mix leaving the boring pellets, (the essential stuff) .

So its far from an easy task to get the feeding right, just like with a small child.....they all have their preferences, and will most definitely rush for the tasty stuff.
Sharron
 
Hi Woodruffsdad. A TNN is a Transylvanian Naked Neck. They are the native breed of Romania. They have little feathering all over due to a growth inhibiting hormone in the skin they produce naturally. It collects in large quantities in the skin all over the neck, so no feathers grow there at all. At the base of the neck is the crop, so that is featherless. When they eat the crop can clearly be seen to be full because it bulges out like they have swallowed a golf ball, or a tennis ball in the case of the cockerels. They are very effective foragers and very flighty and would normally be kept free ranging without limits. Ours can fly about 30 yards and over a 4' fence. When we finally buy a place ours will free range, but we will keep a breeding quartet enclosed to replace predator losses, which over here are by foxes, stray dogs, hunting dogs and buzzards plus wild boar I'm told (which can destroy a ground level coop!)
 
Hi Woodruffsdad.
In answer to your other question, Icemaiden is me!
 
Icemaiden said:
Hi Woodruffsdad.
In answer to your other question, Icemaiden is me!

Sorry! I will sit on the naughty step for an hour.

I thought you were some sort of chicken feed!
 
Well, my overly scruffy one in under 48 hours has transformed back to her usual appearance bar a few tail feathers, the house looked like a fox had been in with the amount of feathers from her, hopefully she starts her laying again soon now.
 
I tend to think that a little of what you fancy might do you good - and the same is probably true of a chicken!

So a few apples between the chooks, plenty of greenery, that kind of thing is very good for them. If, feasibly, they could forage it for themselves its probably not such a bad thing. So I give them a few redcurrants and blackcurrants when they're in season, some gooseberries, some blackberries, etc. when I come home with them from the allotment/foraging.

When it comes to grain etc. I like the advice you often see about no more than an egg cup full or so per day - in practical terms that means the occasional handfull of handy bribery shared out between a few chickens isn't going to do any harm.

Regarding moulting, what I find most amazing is how much this seems to change as a hen ages. Our old speckledy Bess started moulting well over a month ago, stopped for a bit, and how she's started again - it seems she's doing it in two stages. Frankly I think she's fed up with it - most morningts it looks like someone let off a grenade in a chicken inside the hen house- and when I compare this to how she sailed through the process when younger its obvious to me that these things take longer as they age.

She and her old stablemate Vicky never laid after moulting, starting on egg prodction again in February for the last couple of years.

The other thing thats amazing me is that the younger girls are showing no interest in moulting. Three picked up in Spring are still laying - two nearly every day and the other (Jane, who's been ill this year) maybe three or four a week. Of the two picked up to see us through winter with eggs from girls just coming in to lay one of them lays daily at the same time with the regularity of a metronome, the other hasn't started yet (so keeping an eye on her).

The hybrids especially seem to just keep going for longer in to winter - but I think age, where they are, how they're fed etc. all play such big roles in this its hard to know.
 
Good news. One of my hens has feathered up beautifully and now looks gorgeous. She started laying again about 2 weeks ago.

The other hen is coming along nicely. Refeathered around her rear end but a bit "scraggy" around the neck. Not laying yet but I have high hopes!
 
Well done! It is really god when they get through the 'bad hair day' stage, isn't it! And laying at this time of year after a heavy moult is phenomenal - obviously very well -looked-after girls.
 
Marigold said:
Well done! It is really good when they get through the 'bad hair day' stage, isn't it! And laying at this time of year after a heavy moult is phenomenal - obviously very well -looked-after girls.

We do tend to pamper them. Maybe a bit too much.

Should we really kiss them goodnight? (Joke, honestly!)
 
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