My female silky chicken is suddenly shedding hair and stopped laying eggs. What should i do?
Image by Rachel Tayse
Question by TURHER: My female silky chicken is suddenly shedding hair and stopped laying eggs. What should i do?
I have a female silky chicken and she is suddenly shedding hair and stopped laying eggs.
We keep her indoors and often when it is sunny in my backyard i would take her out with 2 of my other chickens.
She lives indoor with another silky in two seperate cages.
For them to not stress a lot we take them out often.
She had been doing so well before, but now her changes worries me.
what should i do? why is she suddenly doing this?
What do you think? Answer below!
3 Responses to My female silky chicken is suddenly shedding hair and stopped laying eggs. What should i do?
Leave a Reply
She is fine..It is called going through the Moult. Look up moulting in chickens on Google.They stop laying during this period too..She will grow brand new “feathers” and return to laying..All birds Moult once a year, some just worse than others.
Insanium
December 22, 2013 at 12:48 pm
I would be very worried as chickens have feathers not “hair” !
Is she losing feathers just from her breast or all over her body ie tail feathers are gone too? If she is just losing feathers from her breast she might be going to go broody, broody hens stop laying & sit in the nest 24/7 to hatch out eggs. They lose breast feathers so their skin is in contact with the hatching eggs. Silkies go broody very readily they even sit on empty nests with no eggs in them.
She could be moulting which is normal depending on the time of year. Do you feed your chickens proper layers food so they are getting all the nutrients they need? Do they have access to a dust-bath regularly? They need to dust-bath regularly to keep mites & lice under control naturally, she could have feather lice.
Chickens are sociable creatures which don’t do very well when kept alone. Why do you keep them separately in cages? They should live together outside in a wooden coop with perches to roost on with a large run attached to protect them from predators. Chickens are not meant to live indoors in our houses. They need to eat lots of grass & bugs, they also need to dust-bathe when they feel the need. They should be out in the sunlight for Vitamin D to absorb calcium the same as we do.
Get your chickens living outdoors where chickens should be would be my advice.
Trust Me I'm a Doctor ♥
December 22, 2013 at 12:51 pm
first thing don’t worry by the way you mean feather’s not hair your silkie is very much in the moult if she as stopped laying eggs completely Not all chickens under go a complete moult they can have a full or partial moult this can take any were up to 3 to 5 weeks before she gets her feathers back to normal just because your other asen’t they don’t have to both moult at the same time its also the time of the year for this to happen i can assure you this moulting its natural every bird gose’s through this some worse than others.
.i don’t know how bad she is with it as you don’t say also with her been in the house she won’t have any bird mite’s witch is good so long as she is eating and drinking that’s fine and not been any were near any birds that have mites .
she will not eat or drink much but you must still offer food and water also put a garlic clove or apple cider vinagar from your pet shop not the one we use its specially for hen’s in her water that helps the immune system to stave off colds and things that they can become susceptible to during the moult You might find that after the moult, egg production starts and stops again.i do
i have a pet white miniture silkie i breed her in an incubator she was the only one that lived out of 18 eggs so i fetched her up my self in the house my cadge is an open cadge i cover her up every night or she would just roam about all night if i let her i alway’s clean up after her straight after her if she dose a poo this is one thing you must do.
she is 12 month’s old she is so tiny she dosen’t have the feather’s round her feet i just let her roam freely around the house she follow’s me every were but she will not go outside even though my back door is open i can do anything with her she as never gone for me yet she is so tame she sit’s on me.i also have a kiddy’s paddeling pool in the corner with sand in so she can roll in it i feed her on dried meal worm’s along with her proper hen food. i go cut grass for her and fetch that for her she gets better looked after than some kids do.
she loves veg but i always boil it mash it up for her.there are lots of people that keep silkies in the house if they are only small so you not by yourself.i did a lot of reasrch on how to look after them if keeping them as pets i wouldn’t have kept her in the house if she had have been larger than she is though they are so docile she just make’s me laugh if she could talk she would she insen’t like an hen i spoil her to bits.
.
just at the moment she is moulting but only under her belly she asen’t ever had a full moult yet but she as gone broody with it this is not uncommon
if you don’t want her to have babies its not cruel as some people probably might think infact i don’t think she would know how to sit any eggs this is the second time for her i must admit its hard to keep doing this by getting her out of the broody stage.i am going to try her and see if she will sit some eggs as they do need to have one clutch
if you want a Tip on how to stop her going broody this is how to do it look above her nose at the sere if its red and her feet start to get hot she is going broody you can help stop this if you don’t want her to have any chic’s.
this is the only way to get her out of it without putting eggs under her put a wire tray about 4 inches above the bottom off the cadge so she can’t squat down and get too comfy if there is a breeze outside put her outside in her cadge for about an hr then fetch her back in this cools them down make sure the cadge is open all way round not an enclosed cadge this takes round about 4 to 5 day’s for her to come out of properly.
but please don’t worry she will be fine i also breed budgies and Finch’s so i do know what im talking about i have hen’s outside as well i hope this puts your mind at rest and helps you to over come the worry.
jenny
December 22, 2013 at 1:11 pm