No Feathers - November!

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!      

[Thomas Hood]

 

No feathers!

 

Mother Nature can be cruel at times and, as the cold November winds started to blow and we had the first frosts, she chose to let one of our hens go into full moult.

 

Here she is at the beginning of her moult when she still had some dignity, just her back feathers had gone but she quickly came to resemble a plucked chicken.

 

I have watched her closely but whilst the other hens give her a peck in passing, they have pretty much left her alone.

 

Thankfully, this is the first chicken we have had that has shown some sense. For the past few days she has stayed in the chicken shed; I have put food and water in there for her and she sleeps in the nest box.

 

The first morning I noticed she was doing this was when all of the hens came out of the pophole and she went around the back of the shed and back into the pophole once the others had vacated the premises.

 

It is all natural, of course, and hens usually moult when their feathers have become a bit old and tatty. Feathers don't last forever and need to be replaced. But a moult can happen at any time if the bird is stressed.

Some of the others have had partial moults throughout late summer and autumn, mainly replacing their breast feathers. At one point we had about five hens with no neck feathers, making them look as if someone had tried to wring their necks. I had to giggle because they looked like turkeys.

 

Happily, this hens feathers are starting to grow back but I imagine that, as well as being a bit chilly,  it is also pretty painful for her to be around the other hens; snuggling up at night will put pressure on the new quills that are slowly starting to sprout feathers. Still, come deep winter she will be fluffy and plump and well protected.

 

Apparently, such a quick moult indicates that she is a good layer and it is common amongst hybrid birds. I have no idea of the science, but the moult is linked to how well the bird lays. I can't say if this holds true because this is the first hen I have seen go into full moult so quickly, and we have always had hybrids until now.

This information also leaves me wondering when our Light Sussex cockerel will go into moult. All should be revealed over the coming year.