Worse for Wear and Chicken Feathers in Development

Last Thursday, they didn't look worse, but after a very hot weekend, they have lost a lot more feathers. HOWEVER, I do see some feather tips pushing through the little shafts.

I wanted to learn more about how feathers develop in birds and came across an interesting article online.  "A feather develops from a follicle, which is found in the dermal and epidermal layers of the skin. To me, the way the bird’s skin cells are able to develop a large, primary feather, complete with shaft, barbs and barbules is one of those miracles of nature. While a feather is actively growing from the follicle, there is one artery and one vein that runs through the feather to support the growth. Once the feather has reached the full size, the blood supply is no longer needed and the vessels shrivel up. However, the follicle maintains a blood supply in the skin." (Quoted from  birdchannel.com) 

I was able to get a good close-up of this happening on the neck of one of the hens shortly before the all started pecking at the camera. So, one of the gals is hard hit by the new feather development, one is so-so, and the third is just now starting to lose her down feathers, but the majority of her feathers are still intact. You can see all three and their various stages below. 

BeFeathered My Friends

So here we are, another week and still not much in the way of new feathers in place of the ones that fell out. The fall-out has slowed down a lot! But the replacements are slow to arrive. One of the hens is either going through a very light molt, or she's going to be doing hers later. She is the first photo. The rest of the photos are the two who have been most impacted by the feather shed. It's interesting that they didn't lose feathers off their heads. At least not at this point. I want to keep posting photos weekly to kind of get a comparison of how they are doing one week to the next until the molting is done.

The Big Molt Down Continues

Yes, the older gals are in their first molt. Two are in worse shape, but definitely, all three are muddling through without too much distress. We have a lot of live mealworms ready for them to consume which are high in protein.  I read that we should try to stay above 16% protein, trying to get closer to 18% if possible in their feed and limit crack corn or oatmeal to less than 10% or it will dilute the amount of protein that they get in their feed. I read that feathers are 85% protein! But, it's not just "protein" but keratin filament protein, which is the same stuff our skin, hair and nails consist of. So, the little extra protein in their diet gets converted directly into making those new feathers. 

We have put the hens back onto the organic "developer" feed which is about 16%.  I think (just thinking out loud here) if we stay with the developer but do supplement it with cooked eggs and mealworms, we should be fairly safe in that regard. We just don't want to over do with the protein, because that can also be bad by causing diarrhea. 

We need to rake all the feathers out of their pen so that they have access to the pasture! 

Sixteen Months - Melting or Molting?

The one-year old Orloffs are in a full on feather dropping molt. Don't know if all the very hot weather over the past two weeks set this in to motion, or the fact that they are getting ready for the fall... this week was much cooler. They have all stopped laying eggs.  We were only getting about two eggs per week from each one, which we attributed to the extreme warm temps this summer.

While the ladies don't look any less feathered, in all reality, it is obvious in their coop and pen that feathers are a flying off their bodies at a rapid rate. I didn't want to stress them out any more than they already are, so I tried to take the snap shots outside their pen which kinda put a bit of a blur through the middle of the photos. 

Playing Catch UP and no Ketchup

The Orloffs will be twenty-two weeks on Wednesday. Here's a couple photos of one of my favorites, and then someone else decided to squeeze in for a close up!  No egg layers yet. Nesting boxes are open and ready with lots of fresh timothy hay.  

Chickens are notorious  for knocking their feed on the ground, every chance they get.  Well, that's fine and good if its crack corn or something, but the expensive stuff breaks into such fine dust after it's trampled on, that it basically becomes mouse food ;( 

Last spring I decided to try my hand at creating my own chicken feeder that can be hung up, not too easy to access by little critters at night and rain doesn't saturate the food. I've been patiently waiting for the guys to decide to try it out.... Today, they have installed my home-made rain-proof hanging feeder.  I need to tweek a few things, but basically I made it from a $4,00 chick feeder, five-gallon bucket and lid, some 1" PVC pipe, a plastic corrugated piece of signboard and a few screws to hold things in place. It holds up to 10 pounds of food at a time.   The other feeder that I made is built inside the coop, and it works real well, so far. (My apologies for the poor graphics on the last image. The angle was difficult to work with through the wire mesh. )

Grass Growth in Five Weeks

I took photos a little more than a month ago (five week ago) of the over picked ground where the pen had been for a bit too long with the ten chicklets.  I took photos of the same area today, and it is mostly filled back in.  In the photos below, are the before and current grass situation.  Of course, most people could care less about our "pasture" recovery, but this is for my records, not for anyone else. LOL

Section 1 - May 31	Section 2 - May 31
Section 2 - July 3	Section 2 - July 3
Section 1 & 2 - July 3

Fourteen Weeks with Ten More to Go

The younger girls are doing well. They have about ten more weeks to becoming layers. This past week, we had to keep everyone shaded and well watered because the heat went from 60s into 90s basically over night. It was hard on them, since they are now heavy-feathered and the heat was not something they were able to suddenly adjust to. I took some quick snap shots today. Not the best pix, but gives a quick overview of how they are all looking at this point.