Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Our White Leghorn is moulting. It is a pretty extreme moult as the first and last photos show. But the new feathers are already coming through. What you can see are the quills, the base of the feather that is attached to the skin. Over the next week or so the full feathers will develop and hopefully completely cover her again. Over the weekend, it looked as though the fox had been in as there were feathers everywhere as she shed masses virtually overnight!!
It is a daft time to be moulting: she really should have got it all over and done with before the winter so that she was then fully feathered again for when it gets cold (see 30th September posting). Having said that, when the old feathers had fallen out, it was good to see all the new growth coming through straight away! Sometimes chickens lose their old feathers and THEN the new ones start growing: this leaves them very exposed and potentially cold: chicken skin is very thin and easily damaged so it is not a good idea for a chicken to 'bear all' to the world for too long.
As you can see from the middle photo, she was not the smartest looking chicken ever back in the summer (but she did have a huge tail, no tail now!!). Her energies tend to go into egg laying as she is one of our best layers. Needless to say we have not had any eggs from her since she began moulting and we don't expect her to start again till she is in better shape. We hope she takes her time!!