Time To Get Ugly-Chicken Molting Season Is Here!

Sweet Pea During Molting Season

Every fall, my birdies stop laying eggs and start losing their feathers. It's molting season!

The very first year my chickens went through their molting process, I thought they were sick and dying. They looked extremely awful! Not only did they look terrible, but they also acted differently too. 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 currently 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 sleep 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 a wonderful way of providing constant heat to the chickens throughout the colder weather. This keeps 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!!!

Tweedle Dee During Molting Season

One of the bad things about molting season is my egg production greatly decreases. During nonmolting season, I collect about three dozen eggs a day from my flock of birds. Right now, I'm lucky if I get a dozen eggs a day.

The girls will start laying eggs again once their winter coat of feathers grow back and they look less "bald".

I'm not sure what this winter will hold, but the chickens molted MUCH earlier this year. They normally go through their annual molt around Thanksgiving, but my girls started the last week of September. In other words, Squawk Readers, this winter is predicted to be a "different" type of winter this year....as predicted by my feathered friends, and as you know, animals know more about our weather than we do!

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly

P.S. Thank you for everyone who took the time to attend my book signing at Living Truth Bookstore in Noblesville, Indiana this past weekend. It was super lovely to see several friendly faces! I truly appreciate your love and support!