We got Butterscotch and Speckles at the end of July last year so they have just completed their first year with us.
Speckles was moulting when we got her, started laying in March and started moulting again at the end of July just like last year.
Butterscotch is the most different girl I have ever come across. She has gone broody as regular as clockwork every month but has moulted every month too. She lays for two weeks then goes broody and moults for two weeks (usually broody for the first week and recovering for the next week before starting to lay again) then lays for two weeks and the cycle just keeps repeating.
At the moment she nearly has her head and neck feathers back in and she is laying once more.
Butterscotch’s head and neck feathers are nearly back in
Once more her crest looks like it’s coming back
The feathers on the back of her neck are beginning to open
These photos of her are almost identical to the photos I put out a month ago. She has been losing her head feathers every month when she goes broody for the last six months. Every month she loses her head feathers then while laying her eggs for two weeks she grows them back in again then goes broody and loses them again.
We got her at the end of July last year and she started laying in August. At the end of August and the beginning of September she went broody for the first time with us and then had a big moult. She looked like a feather duster and I assumed she wouldn’t lay again that year.
To my surprise she started laying again through September then went broody again in October. The pattern continued with her broody again in October and November. She laid throughout December going broody again at the end of December and beginning of January when she lost her tail feathers.
In February she went broody again and this was when she first lost her head feathers. She laid again and grew her head feathers back in but went broody in March and lost them again. In April her head feathers were back in but she went broody again at the end of the month and lost them again.
In May her head feathers were almost back and her photo was almost identical to the one of her now. In June she went broody again and lost her head feathers once more. By the end of June the pins on her head were opening again.
In July she went broody again and once more lost her head feathers. She also had a bigger moult this time and again dropped her tail feathers. Once again I thought that she may not start laying again but by the end of July she was laying again and her head feathers were opening up again.
It’s not the fact that she goes broody every month that surprises me but the fact that for a year now she has moulted every month too. If she moulted a different part of her feathers each month I could understand it but what really puzzles me is that for six months now she has moulted her head and neck feathers over and again. I am surprised that they keep growing back.
I wonder how long this will continue. I am assuming that she will stop laying and going broody over winter and will get all her feathers back in but I wonder if she will repeat this same pattern next year. Is she destined to have an almost bare head for half the year?
I guess we will have to wait and see. It will be interesting to see what winter brings and how she will be next year. Despite all this she is still our best layer when she is laying and I will be interested to see how the end of year egg tally stacks up. I will be surprised if Butterscotch doesn’t have the largest total of eggs over the year.
I will miss the eggs during the winter but it would be great to see Butterscotch with a full head of feathers again.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
That year has gone by so fast,She is still a lovely girl, but will be nice to see her withher fluffy headagain.
You are right that the year has gone by so fast. I am really hopeful that this time she will keep her head feathers because it is near enough to the end of the laying season for me to close the nest boxes and stop her next broody spell. She is back to laying every day again at the moment which is really good this late in the year. It would be great to see her with her crest back. I looked back at the photos when we first had her and it seems a long time since she has looked like that.
I hope she does have a more protracted non-laying spell, which might help her regenerate her top knot. That said, Cotton has always just done mini-moults and alternated between laying and being broody during the winter, so Butterscotch might keep you supplied with some eggs when all the rest have stopped totally. She’s proven to be one really dependable bird – in all ways!
That’s an interesting thought that she might continue through the winter. It would be good to still have some eggs. I guess only time will tell. Her head feathers are the most advanced that they have been in six months and she almost reminded me of previous bad hair days in the rain today. I took some photos for my next post.