The scruffy seven and the big molt

The days are getting shorter and colder, the temperature dropping (not that we got much of a summer!)
and it looks like many, many feather pillows have exploded in the yard and the coop.
It's time for the chickens to molt their shaggy scruffy feathers, and replace them with beautiful new ones!

 

Lacey was the first to start. Usually a little piggy, she was hanging at the back during treats time, her comb and wattles became small and pink, she's lost a bit of weight and her feathers fell out in patches, replaced by a mass of pin feathers.

 

 

 

 

We've been careful when picking her up, it seems to take forever for the feathers to grow out! her dull and faded fluff is now glorious and shiny, her little legs are bright buttery yellow again and she is back to her cheeky tart self.
 

Lacey in the middle, partway through a molt

 

 

The girls seem to be molting in order of when they started laying and it has been interesting to see how differently they go through it. Sunny was next to start and if it weren't for the massive patch of butt fluff she lost at the start or the fact that she is now a shiny feathered, yellow legged bird I probably wouldn't even know anything had happened. She wasn't moody (well, any more than usual for her) or tired like the others, she seems to have taken her time and molted slowly.

 

 

 

 

Head hen Blue picked on poor Lacey and Sunny, hey they looked funny and weren't acting like healthy birds. She calmed down as the early molters filled out and then it was her turn.

Blue feathers everywhere! usually chatty, she became much more quiet. She lost her tail and a lot of neck feathers almost at once

 

 

 

 

Her new feathers are slowly pushing through, dark and beautiful. I've noticed the birds who aren't feeling great spend more time following the ducks, which she did for a few days.

Lizzy our last bird to lay, was up until then still laying her lovely little round eggs. In the last few days her brown eggs faded to white, after 4 days of not laying at all, her feathers started dropping too.

Just in time! the frosty mornings were starting, I had hoped we wouldn't have almost naked birds running around on cold winter days!
I can usually tell which are Lizzy's feathers on the ground, hers have an almost perfectly even black edge around a darker gold colour.

Lizzy and Blue preening their pins

It will be a while before the hens lay again, and I'm fine with that. They deserve a rest.

The ducks are as usual completely different here, they laid right up until about the end of January. White and light brown feathers littered the ground, Whitney's feather loss was the most noticeable, her neck was very scruffy, she was covered in pin feathers and I remember sitting outside hoping she would stretch her wings so I could see her little wing nubs. At this stage she had lost all her flight feathers... a term I use lightly as being domestic ducks, they do not at all fly.

I don't remember Bonnie being a scruffy molter, all of a sudden both ladies are beautiful darker brown again and about 2 months after taking a break, they are laying an egg a day.

It's been an interesting year so far, every hen (excluding Lacey) took a turn at being an angry broody puff. Lizzy tried twice! even Bonnie duck had a go

 

 

Of our hens she would be the least likely to be a good mum... or actually hatch anything at all, Bonnie wasn't even interested in sitting full time, and her nesting spots changed from any of the 3 nesting boxes to the dark tarp covered corner. She would puff up, hiss, attack and chase anyone or anyone near her chosen nest site, but it didn't take long for her to give up completely.

 

But also, we have lost Chuck, our little rooster.

Around Christmas we noticed he was slowly becoming more and more quiet, a bit paler than usual and he wasn't running around like his usual crazy jerk self. Instead of having to protect Stevie duck from his (sexual...) advances, Stevie was running around chasing all the ladies. He's fast when he wants to be!

 at first we thought it was breeding season hormones, that Stevie and Chuck had fought, that Stevie had won, and that Chuck had simply hurt his pride.

Chuck sat quietly in the bushes, the ducks ignored him and his hens preened him.

Crazy stompy Stevie duck had to be separated in a pen where he could see his bird friends but not get at them. We were worried he would hurt a chicken, Bonnie and Whitney sometimes visited him in Duck prison.

But it became obvious Chuck needed a vet visit, he was still weirdly quiet and pale. His poop was normal, he seemed to be eating fine, no crop issues, no injuries, no lice or mites. He was given antibiotics and wormed. I got to relive the joys of squirting antibiotics into a squirmy chickens beak and he perked up a bit, spending a lot of his day trying to convince the ladies that the wheelbarrow is in fact the best nesting spot. He really loved that wheelbarrow.

Chuck and Blue

 

 

But he never really got better, and he started taking longer to get off the roost in the morning, about 2 weeks later we took him to the vets again and were given a coccidiostat, all the chickens were sequestered in the coop so the ducks wouldn't ruin the medicated water.

About another week later and Chuck had trouble getting up on the roost at night, he was alarmingly thin and I realised I could no longer find his crop. He sat in the wood shavings with dilated pupils. Usually we would have already separated a sick chicken, but neither the hens or ducks attacked him to chase him off (probably because he was a rooster and not a hen) and the vet had advised he didn't need to be. But that night we took him inside to a quiet safe area and prepared for another vet visit.

Chuck had lost a lot of weight in a week. His poop still seemed okay, but he was not happy. We talked with the vet about what could be wrong, and discussed whether it was worth trying anything else or whether it was time to let him go. Our vet suggested that since he had reacted positively to the antibiotics the first time, it was worth trying another round of them and deciding from there what to do. lab tests were organized on poop samples for coccidiosis, salmonella and (another that I still cant remember what it was). At home again he slept and we mixed up food and electrolyte water for him.

That night he passed.

 

 

A necropsy turned up no answers and his poop tests came back negative. On the plus side, what ever he had doesn't appear to be contagious or an issue to the other birds, but we still aren't sure what happened. He's now in an area where his girlfriends like to dust bathe on sunny days or shelter from the rain.

Lizzy having quiet time in what was at one point a vegie patch

 

 

The birds don't spend all day in a big group like they used to, the ducks have always stuck together at all times, but the chickens do their own thing which for their safety can be a bit of a worry. They still fight over nest boxes and Chuck is no longer there to scream the egg song along side them, or help make their nests. The neighbours rooster no longer has a close by rooster friend to yell to.

Surprisingly he also kept the peace amongst our lot, they fight more now. Blue chases lizzy, Lizzy chases Lacey, Lacey chases Sunny, Sunny chases Bonnie and Whitney... until Stevie tells her off... and the duck ladies chase Blue

odd how that works.

3 Buff ducks investigating a hole usually occupied by one of their pools

 

 

So, It has been decided! closer to spring we will hatch some new buddies, I had always wanted Orpingtons anyway and now instead of hoping for all girls, we will be hoping one is a boy -

Chuck Junior