{"id":15164,"date":"2016-05-09T07:44:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T07:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=15164"},"modified":"2016-05-09T07:44:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T07:44:13","slug":"toffee-is-moulting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=15164","title":{"rendered":"Toffee is moulting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toffee hasn’t laid an egg for two weeks now. I was wondering why she had stopped laying when suddenly she started moulting. It seems a bit early to be moulting.<\/p>\n

The game girls do have a short laying season and Toffee’s is a bit shorter than Emerald’s but this is short even for her.<\/p>\n

Last year Toffee started laying at the beginning of April and finished at the end of May. She laid thirty five eggs in two months.<\/p>\n

This year Toffee started half way through March and stopped at the end of April. She has laid twenty six eggs in one and a half months.<\/p>\n

This is Toffee and Emerald’s third egg laying year with us but as the farmer used game birds as his broodies I can’t be sure how old they were when we got them. They may have been one or two years old already.<\/p>\n

Both Toffee and Emerald are showing white tips to their feathers when they lose their outer wing feathers. It’s almost like us going grey.<\/p>\n

\"Toffee's<\/a>

Toffee’s feathers<\/p><\/div>\n

I picked these up one morning a few days ago and picked up the same again in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"Toffee's<\/a>

Toffee’s white tipped feather<\/p><\/div>\n

As she loses outer wing feathers a white tipped feather is exposed.<\/p>\n

\"Toffee<\/a>

Toffee has a bunch of loose feathers under each wing<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Toffee<\/a>

Toffee has feathers sticking out under each wing<\/p><\/div>\n

I took these photos of Toffee yesterday. As she moves feathers are fluttering from her. I looked back at last year and she did start moulting at the end of May so I am guessing her earlier start to egg laying this year is why she is moulting earlier.<\/p>\n

When researching game birds before I got them I had read that they were poor layers and was surprised because while Toffee and Emerald lay they do lay almost every day. I now think that it is meaning the amount of eggs per year because they have such a short season.<\/p>\n

They are such lovely girls though that I couldn’t care about that. I would always want game girls in my flock as I love the way they look and the way they behave. They are adorable. It is interesting how different the different breeds are and that is part of what I love about my diverse little flock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toffee hasn’t laid an egg for two weeks now. I was wondering why she had stopped laying when suddenly she started moulting. It seems a bit early to be moulting. The game girls do have a short laying season and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15164"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15198,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15164\/revisions\/15198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}