Fall Molt

 Moving the hens to their winter coop late has had consequences. The main reason we do it is to give them artificial light because they will stop laying with less than 14-hour days. I neglected to think of the other day length cue—molting. Many birds molt seasonally. Some do it to change to and from breeding colors. Others, including chickens, do it to replace worn and damaged feathers prior to winter's cold. Molting and lack of egg laying are two sides of the same coin. Hens have resources to grow new feathers or lay eggs, but not both. For most of September, day after day I’d find piles of feathers under the roost in the morning. Five of the eight hens looked more bedraggled by the day.

Silvia and Luella. Note Silvia's unkempt appearance and
downy feathers peeking through on Luella's chest.

Trudy is losing her characteristic bronze feathers with black edge. 
She is a golden Wyandott like Luella, above, and should look the same.

Goldie having a bad feather day

Close up of wing feathers growing in

Someone who (I suspect) spends too much time on the internet told me that molting is painful for chickens, and you shouldn’t pick them up while they are growing feathers. I was skeptical. I did some googling and found words like “sensitive,” which could be interpreted as painful, but how maladaptive would that be? Feathers are analogous to hair in mammals. Hair doesn’t hurt when it grows. I have observed my chickens preening constantly (poking at their skin and pulling their feathers through their beak). To me, it looks like molting itches, which would be annoying enough, certainly. Bad news—molting takes 8 to 12 weeks. We may not have extra eggs until Thanksgiving.

Frankie preening or scratching itches. Hard to tell

Lucky doesn’t molt. She’s too young. She’s grown into a pretty young lady. She is not showing any signs of getting ready to lay, more’s the pity.

Lucky

Her feathers are iridescent green when the sun hits at a certain angle. It doesn’t show up well in the picture, but it’s impressive in person.

Lucky's iridescent feathers

The silver Wyandotts also don’t seem to be molting, but I can’t explain why. They don’t look like they’re missing feathers.

The two silver Wyandotts, Dottie (left) and Bonnie

Right now, we get 0, 1 or 2 eggs a day. It takes more than a week to accumulate a dozen. I know for a fact that Goldie and Silvia are not laying as we have not gotten a blue egg in over a month. I think that only Bonnie and Dottie are laying. We seem to be getting only two kinds of eggs. One is normal and the other is an odd elongated shape. I don’t know which one lays which. For now, we’re just grateful for what we get.

Same breed, two egg colors and shapes. A mystery.