[MellowYellow]

Hi guys.

I have reared my 4 hens from eggs and they are now 13 weeks old.  They are self sexing hybrids and are all beautiful!

My question is regarding their feathers.  They are free range when I'm at home and in their run when I'm at work.  My garden is constantly covered with feathers and their run also needs raking out regularly as there are so many!  They all seem perfectly healthy, they're growing well, full of character and eating everything in sight!

Is it just that their adult feathers are still coming in or should I be worried?

I did keep chickens years ago which I aquired POL and they didn't seem to leave feathers everywhere.

Thank you. 

[Casey76]

They are just moulting their baby feathers.

A chick will moult on average about 4 times before their "proper" adult feathers come in!

You can imagine my chicken pen, when I had 50 adolescent chickens... it looked as if there was a pillow fight every day!

[Ben_H]

ok, this may have bearing on my previous dodgy tail feathers post. At what ages, roughly speaking will a chick/pullet moult?

[Casey76]

Almost constantly for about 18 weeks!

The tend to shed a lot of feathers between 2 and 5 weeks, between 7 and 8 weeks, between 12 and 14 weeks, and normaly they have their full adult plumage by 20 weeks

[Ben_H]

would they shed primary wing feathers during this process or are the primaries the final stage in the maturing process?

I'm uncertain of the age of my two legbars and this may help me get closer to working it out

[salt and pepper]

Ah thats why, i've started to see a few feathers around this week too

[MellowYellow]

Thanks everyone, panic over.    

[Casey76]

Hi Ben, as your birds get older, they will shed thier primaries, so that the new ones will be in line with the size of the bird

[daisy1990]

and when they go broody and pluck their own feathers out to line the nest it will look worse still!