Chicken boarders

[cluckbok]

Our Matilda is moulting, you can't miss it, feathers everywhere, all in the nestbox and in the run and she's stopped laying. Wasn't expecting it just yet!

 

Have any of you noticed that when your hens are moulting that they don't really want to be picked up or stroked? It's just that normally she's so easy to pick up and to stroke but at the moment doesn't really want to know, even with the temptation of corn! Today she just hid under the garden table.! I miss our little cuddles! but understand that maybe she wants to be left alone while she's moulting!

[abwsco]

Mine aren't cuddly chickens but when Barney was moulting she didn't want to come near us at all. I think it takes so much out of them that they just feel grumpy.

[cluckbok]

Yeah I think she has chook PMT cause she was hiding under the table, she's not daft!!

[Egluntyne]

Their hormones dip and they become skittish again for a while.

 

As soon as they feather up and start laying again, it all changes back.

[Chickvic]

Ruby is still like that even though she has feathered up again. Her comb is still quite pink but it shouldn't be long now before we start getting eggs again Pearl has now decided it's her turn to moult and we now have black feathers everywhere

[cluckbok]

How long does the moult take? Hope it doesn't go on too long!

[fowlbird]

How long does the moult take? Hope it doesn't go on too long!

Ginger and Gertrude took about a month but the 4 we have now - 2 Omlets and two ex batts - have been partially moulting since last summer and are now going through a full moult. OH reckons they'll never lay again...

[cluckbok]

Crikey lets hope he's wrong and they do lay again!

 

I hope ours does, OH won't buy eggs We only got one laying at mo so the eggs are very precious like 9ct gold!

[Chickvic]

Ruby stopped laying the end of October and we haven't had any eggs yet. I'm worming them again - just in case.