Do your hens go off their usual feed when they moult?

Shadrach said:

I think feeding animal protein may have some impact. It will be interesting to see what happens during their first major moult.

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Shadrach said:

For a great many chicken health topics we get our information from research done by or with the chicken egg and meat producing companies.

Most of the hens I know of that go through a particularly heavy moult do so in their second year and most battery hens are killed at this age because egg production declines from two years old onward so this may be the reason why so little research and information in general is available on this topic.

There are in the BYC threads quite a few posts from keepers who are very worried about the health of their moulting hens because they are losing weight and often producing watery poop, looking listless and isolated but most concerning is they reduce, or stop eating the commercial feed entirely.

I hope some of those who have posted on the threads about their experiences with moulting hens will contribute here.

What I have found is there is a lot of variation in how sever this first major moult is from hen to hen. I've had hens who "go off" for a couple of days and others who look decidely sick for a couple of weeks. Being concerned about their health I've checked a lot of moulting hens crops at roost time and found that the free range hens had at least partially full crops while more recent experience with what were essentially confined Ex Batts, their crop may be almost empty at roost time. Once the Ex Batts were allowed to forage away from their run their crop content at roost time was noticeably more, but it wasn't from eating the commercial feed.

I've observed perhaps 20 free range hens during their moult and tried with little success to establish what exactly it is they fill their crops with during the day. Also, the free range hens tended to forage in the same areas no matter where their "home territory2 was. One might conclude that these areas contained particular nutrients the moulting hen believes she needs.

Fudge. Her first sever moult. She spent most of the day away from her tribe foraging and her crop would be full at roost time.
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Lima. An Ex Batt not only moulting but also trying to replace feathers damaged before she arrived at the rescue centre. She has improved dramatically since she been allowed out to forage and received additional food supplements from me.
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