Moult - Is it too late?

[sheena]

I've never seen my girl's moult yet, but being ex-batts I didn't know if if they would or not.

For the last few days there has been an abundance of feathers in the run and more so in the house - including nest box.

They are still squabbling but nothing as severe as it was when the new girl's arrived. The only things that suggests to me that they are in moult is the lack of eggs. Out of 8 girl's, Since Thursday I've been only getting 1 egg with the exception of Saturday I got 2! (woohoo put the flags out lol), but I simply cannot tell whose lost feathers and who hasn't.

One tell tale sign this morning was one feather with a hint of purple, so that could be 1 of 3.

Scar, Fluffy, or Red

One thing I will say is that hubby has been giving them vitamin drops since we lost Tiny last week. But he added it to their water for just one day, could this of made matters worse?

[Bramble-Poultry]

nope that could have improved matters. a lot of my hens are moulting due to this very hot spell we have had. they are chucking feathers out all over the place to keep cool.

Moulting can occur at any point, for any number of reasons as far as the bird is concerned. Keep up the high quality feeding you are doing and keep up with the tonic and vitamins as this will all help them regrow feathers. Infact, a slice of toast with some marmite on it will help no end due to the B12 vitamins it is rich in as a treat.

[sheena]

Thanks Brambles, spose I best go buy a bigger pot of Marmite then... it's bad enough having to share it with the kid's, let alone the girl's! lol

I do have a question for tho, cos you are quite high up there in the chook knowledge dept.
One of my girl's crop's feels solid, like she's eaten loads of food.. is that ok or should it be a little softer. You can feel the bumpiness of the pellets in there for deffo.

[Bramble-Poultry]

depends on what time you felt the crop. just after feeding it will be hard while she grinds up the food and drinks a bit to let it all down. My girls are especially hard cropped after a good feed of corn.

they should also have a full crop at bed time. if she is like it for days then i would look to seeing if she has had enough grit to grind her food down. how often does she have access to grit? technically, a bird fed on pellets alone will not need grit as there is grit within the pellet, but i like to put grit in pots around the runs just to keep them topped up. birds have straights such as corn, wheat oats etc will need grit added

[sheena]

I read about them not needing grit if on pellets alone, but cos I feed them other bits and pieces aswell I give them grit also. As I don't have a hopper to put it in, it's in a large ceramic dog bowl that won't tip over all over the floor.

I mix the grit in with the oyster shell so they get both.

I had another feel of her crop tonight and it's smaller than it was this morning when I had a feel so i'm not to worried now it's going down. But I do feel that she is missing out on all the fun in the run thanks to the others.
I think she may have shown her vulnerability to them and is being picked on by the others. She camps out in the nest box most of time, so i'm devising a plan to either make an external nest box (like traditional nest box) as at the mo they just have a nest frame within the hutch, so the nesting area is the same ceiling height as the house.

This I hope will encourage them to lay again, but hubby is planning on putting a 2nd smaller house in so that any that are being picked on can have some peace from the culprits.

And I can't be sure but I think it's "Alconbury" who is plucking feathers from "Scar" (girl with what I thought was crop problem). I caught her this afternoon pulling one from Scar's backside, but I went and bought some cod liver oil today to give them a bit of a boost anyway.

Gonna mix that in with a bit of spice and hopefully they might start perking up and hopefully give me more than one egg! Fingers crossed x

[Suechooks]

If you can be very hard hearted you could try and not give them any extras and just feed them layers pellets. If you give too much corn or treats it can reduce egg numbers as it unbalances the diet.
Very hard to do i know - specially when they come running just knowing there's a treat in your hand!

[sheena]

They used to have loads more than they do now Sue... there could be a number of factors as to why they aren't laying to be brutally honest.

First there were 5, then took in the neighbours 2 when she moved (they were only temps until their new owners were ready with their new home).
Then #1 and #2 died within days of each other, taking it back down to 5.
Egg production at this point was average of 3 a day.
Then the a week after the 2 girl's died, I rescued another 6 taking the numbers up to 11.
Within 4/5 days Tiny, one of the new girl's passed.
Then last friday the 2 temp's went to their new home, bringing us back down to a sombre 8!

This has all happened within a month, and thinking about it... it seems that is when it all started to go down hill with egg supplies dropping.

Before the 2 temps came along, was getting 4/5 eggs a day from my original 5. Too much stress in such a short period could be the problem, what do you think?

[Suechooks]

Yes you're right - they are creatures of habit. When I went on a short holiday a couple of years ago, the girls were laying well but when I got back there had been about 6 during the whole week instead of 6 a day. Their temporary "carer" just didn't do things the way I did and it took a while to get them back to normal.
I'm rehoming my Bluebelle tomorrow as she is bullying the Warrens and ex-batts unmercifully when they're free ranging and chasing them off the nest just as they are about to lay etc. I've done all the separation stuff and it works with the more dominant girls but the ex-batts have no fight in them. I'm expecting a drop in laying from the Black Rock who was purchased with the Bluebelle but I expect they'll soon settle again. Hope yours sort them selves out soon!

[sheena]

Looks like everything is going well now... gave them some CL oil and some spice with their feed last night, so they would of got it in their system this morning.

And to my surprise we had 3 eggs today, albeit one of them is so small it probably don't even have a yolk, but the effort was there. So glad they are beginning to sort themselves out.

Just finished fencing off the plants in the garden, and now they are trying to hatch an escape plan to get over the fence. lol