Red stopped laying ten days ago which was right at the time of my last post. She had laid seven eggs in two weeks. A week after red stopped laying she started moulting. Now three days later she is dropping massive amounts of feathers. Both the chicken shed and the run looked like an explosion had happened today.
This is a full pot of feathers and I pick up every day. I do the chicken shed in the morning which had loads of feathers then the run at mid day and these are just the ones from the run. I poop picked first, emptied my pot, then feather picked to see how many feathers there were so this pot is full of just feathers. I think it’s the most feathers I have picked up in just one day. Yet as you can see Red doesn’t look any different at the moment.
I also compared Red’s number of eggs last year and this year. Red started laying in November 2024 and laid 18 eggs in November and December 2024. She continued from January 2025 until the first week in September and laid 80 eggs. This year she started laying in January 2026 until her last egg on October 2nd and has laid 82. I am amazed that she has still laid so well as they usually lay less every year.
Snow came in at the same time as Red but was two months older. Snow laid 49 eggs in 2024 and laid 85 eggs last year 2025 and 45 eggs this year 2026. This is the usual pattern as they tend to lay half as many eggs each year than the year before so Red has broken this pattern and laid the same amount (in fact 2 eggs more) two year’s running. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.
Luckily the girls seem to have moulted one or two at a time and Red is now the last girl to moult so hopefully I will soon be finished with picking up feathers and they will all be done with moulting before the winter.
Click here to see the history of my flock.