Birds of a Feather Stop Laying Together
How Molting Chickens Reduce Egg Production
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Sherri Talbot Each year, all across social media, the cry goes out from hundreds of new chicken owners as if with a single voice: “What’s wrong with my chickens? Why aren’t they laying?” Often the answer they get back is “your chickens are molting” but follow up information, when do chickens molt, why it happens, how this will affect the egg production and how long do chickens molt are surprisingly hard to come by for the novice chicken breeder.
What Is Molting
Let’s start with what molting is and why chickens do it. Molting chickens are rather like dogs shedding their coats. The old cells die, fall out and are replaced. In chickens – like with dogs – this can happen slowly or relatively quickly. Slow molters tend to start earlier in their laying cycle and earlier in the year, and so are also referred to as “early molters,” while fast molters (sometimes called “late molters) drop their feathers quickly and usually begin the process later in the fall.
Slow Molters
In slow molters, only a feather or two falls out at a time. Most of us lose a few strands of hair a day in combs or in the shower, but it never affects our overall appearance. While chickens don’t do this year ‘round like we do, signs of molting in these chickens are slight; they rarely look like they have even a single feather out of place. This causes them to sometimes also be called “soft” molters. Cochins and Wyandottes are examples of slow molting breeds.
Fast Molters
Fast molters lose a lot of feathers, very quickly. This can be over a couple of weeks, and in some cases is almost seems to happen overnight. Late molting chickens are often what cause new chicken owners to worry. Despite eating and drinking well, they can look shocking, especially in breeds where the feather loss happens suddenly. Don’t be surprised if your quick-molting rooster refuses to come out of the coop and hides in corners for a while – it’s embarrassing for the poor guy! Examples of quick molting breed are Red Stars and Rhode Island Reds.
Whether early or late, molting chickens are working hard to produce new feathers, which uses a lot of bio-energy. It’s always a good idea to provide some extra protein to help them along. Handle molting chickens with care because the incoming pin feathers are delicate and they are also filled with blood and will bleed a bit when broken.
Reduced Egg Production
Aside from appearance, the biggest difference in molting types is egg production. Molting is stressful on a chicken’s body. Shedding its feathers requires that the chickens turn its nutritional resources towards new growth and maintaining its own body, rather than egg laying. Therefore, all poultry owners should expect a drop in the number of eggs they receive during molting, no matter thediet they are feeding or tricks used to try and increase production.
Hens that molt quickly tend to be more egg-productive in the long run. . Their egg laying rate drops to almost nothing during the molt, but only for a few weeks. Slower molters reduce their egg production during their more extended molting period, rather than completely stopping. Because the slow molt can stretch out for longer periods of time than the fast molting breeds, soft-molting birds produce fewer eggs on average over the course of the year.
It is not surprising then, that birds bred for strictly egg laying purposes tend to be fast molters. Since the egg production only drops for a short period of time, Fast molting chicken breeds are most often chosen for commercial egg layers
Forcing A Molt
Commercial egg facilities often artificially force a molt on hens in order to stagger production. This practice usually involves depriving the hens of food, light, and sometimes water in order to cause weight loss. Since stress and weight loss can cause molt, this method causes hens to shed their feathers out of season. This practice is illegal in much of the UK, but continues in the United States in the industrial poultry sectors.
Even in backyard poultry flocks, some breeders support the use of lights to “trick” the hens into laying continuously rather than molting. While a number of studies have shown this does increase production in the winter, they all reported a marked decrease in production the following spring. Yearly production in these cases ends up being about the same. In addition, studies show that the use of bright lights in young birds can result in higher levels of agitation, feather pulling and other negative behaviors.
Using Different Breeds to Even-Out Egg Production
For a backyard poultry breeder, working outside a chicken’s natural production is unnecessary. Instead, having a number of chicken breeds that have different laying cycles can be helpful to reduce the egg laying “down time.” This can include using the cycles of the slow molters. For those hens who start earlier and take longer to molt, egg production may be reduced overall, but unlike their later-molting counterparts, the fast molters rarely stop production completely. This means available eggs while the slow molters are still recovering. Many of the dual-purpose breeds fall into this category. Some of these birds, such as the Chanteclar, will even continue laying sporadically throughout the winter without the use of artificial lighting. This use of combining multiple breeds can be a great way of providing a year-round source of eggs for a family or small homestead.
Sherri Talbot is the co-owner and operator of Saffron and Honey Homestead in Windsor, Maine. She raises endangered, heritage breed livestock and hopes someday to make education and writing on conservation breeding her full-time job. Details can be found at SaffronandHoneyHomestead.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SaffronandHoneyHomestead.
Originally published in the August/September 2022 issue of Backyard Poultry and regularly vetted for accuracy.
I have a White Leghorn hen who regularly (every 6-8 weeks) stops laying and tries to set. I do not have a rooster. I put her in a small cage with food and water and spray her rear with cold water twice a day, and eventually she stops clucking and resumes laying. Is there anything else I can do to stop this behavior? Denying her the nesting box did nothing to dissuade her.
Hi Jean,
We have a hen that does the same thing. We’ve tried everything. What’s worked best for us it to simply take her off the nesting box every time we see her on it. It doesn’t stop her trying to be broody, but it’s shortened her time sitting. If you can breed her with a neighbor who does have a rooster, she will probably be an attentive mom.
Thank you for the info about this process
We have 4 Rhode island reds and 2 red stars and they look terrible my poor babies
We have 18 month hens that are 4 Rhode island reds, 2 red stars, 1 lavender Orpington, 2 lemon Orpingtons, 2 Plymouth rocks and 3 Americanuas
We have 6 month old hens that are 1 lemon Orpington, 1 Plymouth rock, 2 dark brahmas, 2 silver laced wyandotte, 3 jersey Giants, 3 olive eggers and a copper top maran and 1 rooster that is a speckled Sussex
Will they all molt at same time next year?
Hi Pam,
It’s not unusual for birds of a same age, kept together to molt at the same time. However, chickens are mercurial and opinionated. Some will molt earlier, and some will molt later. They’re more inclined to molt in the fall.
This was a Wonderful article. Thank you for explaining the molting cycle. I do agree with the UK and their molting standards. These Girls provide us with eggs so healthy and tasty that we should willingly give them a break while they molt.
I have six hens. One hen is of concern because she doesn’t seem to fit the pattern in the article. This past spring she was laying her green-shelled eggs normally. She went into a fast molt, quit laying, feathers fell out, all that. After all her feathers grew back in late spring she did not resume laying. The summer went by and not one green egg. In October the rest of the flock quit laying and started molting. That’s a whole month earlier than last year. They’re 4 years old now. Should I expect their laying season to get shorter every year?
Jon,
Laying depends so much on the breed and age of the hen. Some hybrids like Golden Comets are bred to lay a LOT of eggs for only a couple years, then they stop laying. Heritage breeds tend to lay fewer eggs per year, but for more years. At four years old, your hens are probably getting toward the end of their laying lives. I suspect that you will see them tapering off the total number of eggs they lay.
When my hens started molting ( 5 hens ) some layer very bloody eggs. Is this normal?
I have 6 Buff Orpingtons, purchased together as pullets just under 2 years ago, and I assume they’re all molting because I haven’t had any eggs in a couple of weeks. But only one looks like it’s molting. The rest haven’t changed in appearance at all, but that one looked like it was nearly plucked clean. Can 1 of 6 birds of the same breed, of the same age, that were purchased together be a fast molter, while the rest are slow?
Shae,
You’re right in thinking that birds of the same breed tend to molt at the same pace. But what can happen, is that one bird will molt and stop laying, and the other birds stop laying in bird-solidarity. Who knows why? But it does happen. Just give everyone a little more protein and see what happens.