Time To Get Ugly!

Sweet Pea During Molting Season

Every fall, my birdies stop laying eggs and start losing their feathers. It's molting season! The first time the girls went through this process was last year when they were about one and a half years old. At first, I thought the chickens were sick and dying because they looked extremely awful! Not only did they look terrible, but they also didn't act like they felt good. Sweet Pea, in the picture above, normally follows me everywhere around the yard demanding that I pick her up and pet her. During molting season, she avoids being near me and is the last bird to come out of the coop in the morning. Molting is quite painful and takes a lot of energy out of the chickens. It's also a very natural process they have to go through to prepare their bodies with a fresh, full layer of feathers for the cold winter months. It's like getting a new winter coat each fall.

The inside of my coop looks like a snow storm of white and black feathers. I always leave the molted feathers inside the coop adding a layer of insulation during winter. While the chickens sit on the wooden roosting bars at night, they constantly poop onto the feathers. I layer pine shavings, pine pellets, and straw on top of the poopy feather mixture creating an inside compost pile. Composts are wonderful at providing constant heat keeping my chickens nice and warm while it's snowy and icy outside. I rarely have to use a heater inside the coop because of this composting method called the deep litter method.

Since the compost continually decomposes and compresses over time, I do not clean the coop until the spring when it gets above freezing temps during the day. This is a win, win for me...one less chore I have to do throughout the winter. Once I clean out the coop, I throw the composted mixture all over my vegetable garden which my husband then tills into the soil. It's a easy way of fertilizing our garden pretty cheaply, and my veggie plants LOVE it!!!

Thankfully my six month old chickens will not have to molt this fall because they are so young and full of feathers. I'm still getting six to eight eggs a day from those babies since my old ladies are bald, ugly, crabby, and too tired to lay eggs.

Tweedle Dum

On a sad note, one of my old bald ladies disappeared two days ago. I was REALLY hoping. she would reappear from the woods, but it's not looking good right now. An unknown predator probably took advantage of her weakened state of health and had her for lunch. RIP Tweedle Dum, your twin sister Tweedle Dee and I will miss you!

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly