Edna regrowing feathers, November 10

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true…”

~ Tennyson, In Memoriam, Canto CVI

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While I did not know this before I started keeping chickens, these little birds lose many of their feathers at least once each year in what is called a molt. Over the course of several weeks new feathers grow in, giving the chickens a chance to refresh broken or worn feathers. Laying hens will usually stop laying eggs during this time, as it takes a great deal of energy and nutrition to grow new feathers. While this may seem a very natural and elegant process, there is one odd facet to this annual occurrence: for adult chickens it usually begins just as the weather gets cold. Chickens will often face early winter with large bald spots! Luckily for my Spoiled Suburban Hens there are plenty of heat sources to gather around, so things here aren’t all bad.

This year Edna underwent the heaviest molt I have yet seen: at 2:37 p.m. on October 18 she shook herself off, and a pile of feathers that would fill a five-gallon bucket shivered to the ground around her. For the next five or six days I collected what seemed a similar amount from the floor of the pen. She emerged a shadow of her former self, looking less like my fat, glossy black Australorp hen and more like an angry, bald velociraptor.

During this time Edna became somewhat weak, and she ravenously craved protein. I fed her small amounts of finely chopped meat each day, and she made scary sounds of hungry satisfaction as she gobbled her snacks down. If I offered a small dish of meat mixed with anything else ~ vegetables, pasta, you name it ~ she picked the meat out and left the rest. There was only one thing she needed to help rebuild new feathers.

As the days progressed, silvery pinfeathers slowly grew in. The feather shafts emerged covered in waxy, protective sheaths, and as the feathers finished developing this finger nail-like covering would wear off as Edna groomed herself. The feathers fall out and grow back in patches, though, so we suddenly found a strange, shaggy beast stalking the yard ~

Molting Edna: strange beast lurking in the shadows

And when it finally emerged, yikes!

Edna the turkey vulture

During this pinfeather stage (which strangely enough occurred around Halloween), poor Edna bore a striking resemblance to Pinhead from the movie Hellraiser.

Despite the odd creature roaming the yard, we stuck it out and resisted the temptation to open a circus sideshow with old Dame Edna. Gradually those nice new feathers began emerging from their coverings:

Edna three weeks into molt, November 10

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Eight weeks after the beginning of the molt, Edna was once again plump, fully feathered, and ready to rejoin the ranks of the laying hens. She signaled this by laying her first egg since the molt began. I sure had missed those lovely brown speckled eggs!

Edna’s lovely (and delicious) brown speckled egg

Edna’s new feathers are a bit darker than before, and they have that lovely beetle-green sheen I so love on the Orpingtons.

Dame Edna, once again plump and glossy

I suppose I could draw a lesson from Edna’s situation, perhaps gaining greater understanding of Life by observing that our growth and development sometimes contains uncomfortable stages that must simply be quietly endured in order to pass into levels of greater personal power. Or maybe I could liken the molt to the uncomfortable cleaning-out process we can bring to our lives, both literally and figuratively, in order to shed the old and make room for some welcome newness. Really, though, I’m just glad to have my Edna back ~ and I’ll bet she’s glad to once again be fully clothed.

Edna and young Lady Amber grazing

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