An update on the moult

Speckles is moulting and has lost her tail but despite finding loads of her feathers she doesn’t look much different apart from no tail. Her feathers must have been coming through underneath the loose ones.

This morning I put six dishes of mash in the run and spaced them apart around the run to give Speckles a chance to get some. She is still nervous of me and the camera so this was the closest I could get before she ran.

Little “no tail” Speckles having some mash

Honey is our eldest girl at two and a half years old and she hasn’t started to moult yet. I think it will be soon though as her first egg of the year was a soft shelled egg and she laid another soft shelled egg yesterday. Her egg laying had slowed down over the last few weeks so I think she has come to the end of her egg laying for this year. All her other eggs have been fine so I think it’s because of the start up and wind down that this happens to her. I have read that this is sometimes the case.

Honey hasn’t yet started to moult

Topaz hasn’t started to moult yet but then she doesn’t lay eggs either. Topaz is a conundrum, she laid eight eggs in spring and nothing since then. She is a perpetual broody, sitting on all the girls eggs until I remove them, but not committing to it. Because of this she doesn’t lay eggs but always has a bright red comb and wattles and will probably live to a ripe old age, laying one clutch of eggs per year, but laying into old age and not experiencing egg laying problems. That has been the pattern last year and this year but it will be interesting to see if it continues this way next year.

Topaz hasn’t started to moult yet either

Toffee and Emerald have already completed their moult which they started a month earlier this year than last year.

Toffee is looking good

Emerald is looking good

Butterscotch is an amazing egg layer. She has just laid eight days in a row and has now laid fifteen eggs in eighteen days. As she was hatched late last summer I am hoping she won’t moult and will continue to lay through the winter. The fluffy under feathers showing on her back are from Honey pulling the outer feathers during integrations and nest box disputes. This is no longer happening and she is fluffy enough to still look good and at least has no bare patches.

Butterscotch

Barley laid her last egg four days ago and has just started dropping feathers but doesn’t look too shabby yet.

Barley

Peaches laid her last egg eight days ago and has already lost her tail.

Peaches

It is the first moult for Barley and Peaches and as usual they are pretty much in unison with a only few days between them starting to moult.

It is quite good to have a staggered moulting as I am already picking up as many feathers as poop each morning from the chicken shed.

Peaches and Barley kept our egg supply going last winter and this winter I am hoping that Butterscotch will keep going for us. All the eggs on my egg roller are now Butterscotch’s eggs.

It is lovely seeing the girls get their smart new feathers back but we have a bit more shabbiness to get through yet.