Light as a feather
Every year our chooks go through a moult (as all do), which means they loose an amount of feathers. The amount of feathers, and the period over which they loose them, is very chook-dependent. Like dogs, moulting is often seasonal and about now (late summer/autumn) is the time to refresh feathers for the winter ahead. Chooks will also go through a moult after being broody. They’ve sat on real/imaginary eggs, neglected their health and wellbeing and when their raging hormones are under control, they come out the other side and it’s time for a refresh. Our silkie, Chickpea, does this often. She goes broody regularly over summer, much to our disgust. Broody for 3 weeks, 3 weeks off laying, lays 6 eggs, broody again! So on a roughly two monthly cycle our backyard looks like it’s been snowing, with fluffy white feathers a plenty. She sheds them in her wake like a flower girl tossing petals as she wanders around the yard, but regardless of how many we find floating around, she still looks like a fluffball.
The ever fluffy silkie, Chickpea.
Our frizzle polish on the other hand is currently moulting for winter and she looks like she’s half prepared for the pot. Every morning the coop looks like a chicken exploded (quickly count the chooks, yep, still the right number, no, there hasn’t been a fox) and she has less and less feathers and more and more skin showing! Raunchy. As her new pin feathers came through last year she went through quite the punk stage, with a half hair do and spikey outfit (the new feathers) corroborating her rough and ready attitude. Eventually the feathers fluffed out and she was back to her wonderful frizzly self, but it took a while!
Our frizzle polish, Cherry, with half her feathers
Last year Cherry sported a funky half hair do. You can just see the spikey pin feathers pushing through on the top of her head. Can’t be comfortable!
The smooth feathered polish are much more stylish, with only a little scruff showing, although both are missing tail feathers at the moment and look rather like two-legged guinea pigs. A chicken isn’t a chicken if she can’t shake her tail feathers!