Hooray!! After almost a year, Blue’s back feathers are finally growing back. Blue (one of our Bluebelles – guess what the other one is called?) moulted last autumn and also suffered from a bit too much attention from the cockerel (!!). Then, as autumn turned into winter we were a tad shocked to see that her back remained red and bare with not a single pin feather in sight!! (BTW, red is a normal colour for a chicken's skin, it does not mean it is sore.)
And so autumn became spring, spring became summer and Blue’s back remained open to the elements. It seemed not to do her much harm and indeed for a while in early spring, we seem to recall she was the only hen laying eggs for us.
Nonetheless, she looked bare and at times cold and definitely the ugly sister compared to the fully feathered Belle!! We feared her bare back may be permanent as 'over' treading by cockerels can destroys a feather's ability to regrow. BUT a week or so ago, Blue began to moult again and then two days ago we could see the start of the new 'pin' feathers. It seems that her body needed a 'kick start' from a new moult to remind it to start growing these feathers again!!
Blue is not the only one moulting – the poultry stable does rather look as though we have had a fox attack each morning as during the night, feathers fall to the ground from at least half of our older birds. At least we now have a definitive reason for the lack of egg laying – we had just ONE egg today!!!