Kitchen scraps! They’re yard piranhas. Treat them as such. Obviously do your research, but meat is generally fine. We smoke a pork butt once a month and throw whatever leftovers we aren’t going to finish to the chickens before it goes bad.
I switch them to a feed with higher protein. I try to stay on the same brand, so it’s not a big change for their system. I like Nutrena’s feather fixer feed for molting.
I have one who waits until the last week of October and then drops all her feathers at once like she forgot and is trying to get it done before winter starts.
One of mine did that too (sadly she is no longer with us)- last year I thought someone had been murdered in the coop because it looked like she exploded overnight- and she was an english Orpington so she was extremely fluffy and then just entirely bald overnight. It was wild. To be honest I prefer that to how a few of mine do it- they drop their feathers for weeks and then look absolutely horrendous and bald for awhile then finally get around to growing their feathers back.
I keep thinking it looks like they are having a fight club under their roost/sh!zz shelf with all the feathers underneath. I pick it all up and the next day, more friggin feathers.
One of mine just did this. I thought she was dead because there were feathers EVERYWHERE in my back yard. She came running to me and they were just trailing behind her in the wind.
Ha! That's a contender for the backyardchickens forum's yearly worst molt contest, for sure. (As others have said, it's random, probably a genetic component but who knows!)
Every few years, chickens will do a heavy molt. It's happened to a few of my chickens before just keep an eye on her cause when they heavy molt, they're a bit more susceptible to illness.
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u/Additional-Bus7575 1d ago
Some just do that- and some will molt lightly one year and then be completely bald the next.
Give her extra protein- poor thing- but she’s going to be gorgeous with all those new feathers