Molting?

[lovemyfinch]

This would be my first time going through this and I just wanted to be sure that this is molting and not something else.

[L in Ontario]

If that's a molt and it could well be - it's a very hard molt. One of my new hens looks like that. I'm giving her Feather Up and iodine as well as vits and she has lots of new pins coming in but still a bare spot on her face like that. I've heard it could also do with having been breeding.

[lovemyfinch]

Liz, this is the one that I have been giving the iodine regiment. Her neck feathers are coming back in as you can see, now she appears to have a lot of yellow peeking through on her chest. This is Sweetpea my older hen, who has laid a grand total of 2 eggs since I bought her in the fall.

[GOULDYGIRL]

Janine, I think it's mainly hormonal too. My hen Daisy is loosing some face feathers and also around her neck. It's not that bad yet, but maybe because she's in breeding mode right now, I think she will have a hard molt as well once these babies are weaned and I remove her to rest her.

Here is a pick of her last week. That was why I was a bit concerned about breeding her again, so this will definetly be it. The female of all the species always have it worse then the males, sigh...

I know after I had my daughter my hormones were all over the place (still are and I was losing my hair in clumps!!! Thank god I have a lot of it, lol!

I'm sure she'll be fine.

Here is Daisy


Renee

[L in Ontario]

Awww poor Sweatpea! She is most appropriately named! I think the yellow on her chest may be seeing skin / flesh showing through the feathers. Have you given her anything to help make the feathers grow back in a little quicker like Feather Up or Feather Fast? Obviously it's not due to breeding.

[GOULDYGIRL]

Awww poor Sweatpea! She is most appropriately named! I think the yellow on her chest may be seeing skin / flesh showing through the feathers. Have you given her anything to help make the feathers grow back in a little quicker like Feather Up or Feather Fast? Obviously it's not due to breeding.

You don't think so Liz?? Even though she only laid one egg two different times, she still went through the rituals of laying, sitting, breeding. It could be her age as well. It might have took a lot out of her, even though she didn't actual take care of chicks. Anyway, just a thought.

I hope she recovers very soon

Renee

[L in Ontario]

How long ago did you get her Janine? I'm wondering if she possibly may have been bred a lot even before you got her. I've heard recently mine may have been overbred before I got her.

[lovemyfinch]

I am unable to get feather fast or feather around here , so she has been getting Nekton-Bio, which is supposed to be basically the same idea. Here is the write up:

After years of research and experiments we developed NEKTON-BIO to meet certain problems in a bird's plumage and to ensure healthy feather growth in all types of birds.

Feathers are largely protein in nature, which is why 18 free amino acids have been included in NEKTON-BIO to help a bird build the proteins needed. Of the amino acids, arginine, methionine and lysine are particularly vital in a supplement because most cage or aviary birds are fed on bird seed, which is poor in these amino acids. Vitamins A, E, and Biotin also have a positive effect on feather growth. Altogether 13 vitamins, 6 trace elements and calcium have been combined with the amino acids to create a special formula to support the organism during the moult and encourage the growth of smooth and glossy feathers.

Should this be helping her, she does seem to be getting a lot of new feathers in the neck area, it is her face that is upsetting me.

[L in Ontario]

Awww poor Sweatpea! She is most appropriately named! I think the yellow on her chest may be seeing skin / flesh showing through the feathers. Have you given her anything to help make the feathers grow back in a little quicker like Feather Up or Feather Fast? Obviously it's not due to breeding.

You don't think so Liz?? Even though she only laid one egg two different times, she still went through the rituals of laying, sitting, breeding. It could be her age as well. It might have took a lot out of her, even though she didn't actual take care of chicks. Anyway, just a thought.

I hope she recovers very soon

Renee

I think if it only takes a couple of eggs for a hen to get bare spots like that - I would have a room full of completely bald hens. But this is only my opinion and I'm no expert nor had many years of experience. JMHO - I don't think 2 eggs compares with 15+ eggs for three average clutches. But I do agree and think she will get all her feathers back; it's just a question of when.

The NektonBio must be working too then, Janine. My hen also is getting lots of feathers around the neck but still has the bare area on the side of her face. I'll try to get a pic this evening for comparison.

[lovemyfinch]

I bought her and Swee back in May. They sat on one egg twice...and had not been breeding since before I got Bluebell and Red.

[nixity]

It's hard to see what's going on with the rest of her body to say for certain - usually if it's because of a hard molt you'd also see feathers coming in elsewhere on the body.
I can try to get a picture of my Romeo tonight to show you what I mean.

He looks PATHETIC right now - this is the first real molt he's gone through since I got him in the spring of 2008, so I'm not terribly surprised.

You will be able to see he has what appear to be bald patches on his face but he also has pins SURROUNDING his neck, down the two sides of his belly, etc.

I would expect to see a lot of new growth over her body if she was heavily molting to the degree where she would lose large patches of face feathers.

The one thing I would say is that it IS possible to give them too much iodine, so just be careful with that.
I don't think iodine related deficiency and baldness are as much of an issue as online literature would have you think.
Even Laraine agrees with this now, unfortunately the articles on her old site have yet to be updated to reflect this new opinion.

[lovemyfinch]

Tiffany, these are 3 new pictures that I just took of her. When I zoom in on the pictures it seems to my untrained eye that she has a lot of pin feathers everywhere. She was balancing like a ballarina when I took the pics

[nixity]

I don't really see pins :\

BUT - the way her belly is splotchy in color makes me think it could be just a molt
Have you been seeing a lot of feathers everywhere?

[dfcauley]

Hi Janine,

I took a picture of Sugar one of my hens that went almost completely bald.

I am absolutely certain that it was because of breeding. It happened twice after raising
a clutch. I have put her in a cage and I am giving her iodine once a week, feather fast on
soaked seeds and powdered kelp.

You can see the pin feathers as they are coming in. I don't know if this helps, but it will show you what the pin feathers look like when they are molting.
I know she still looks pitiful, but she is soooo much better than she was.

[L in Ontario]

I think if it's something other than a (possibly) severe moult, she would be fluffed and inactive on her perch quite a bit. If she is not fluffed, or only rarely, then I think it's moulting time for her and you are giving her the right supplements... as others mentioned once a week is fine for iodine.