Understanding the Benefits of a Well-Managed Molt in Poultry Keeping

0:00 Have you ever asked yourself what you should do to help your birds through their mold? In this episode of the poultry keepers podcast, we're going to give you the scoop on what you can do to help your birds have a less stressful and more productive mold. This episode is a portion of the poultry keepers 360 live stream called Managing the Mold. To reduce the overall runtime of this episode, the question and answer portion of that live stream isn't included here. So if you want to see the entire live stream, it's archived on the poultry keepers 360 YouTube channel under the live tab. Now here's Jeff Maddox, karen Johnson and myself. I'm going to turn it over to Jeff and let him explain what the heck the mold is and what it can do and what it should do and all the ins and outs about it.

0:59 So, jeff, it's all yours, buddy. Thanks, rip. So just to state the obvious and I'm not being you know, the mold is a natural occurrence. Every bird is going to go through at least a mold a year. Some birds go through two or three or four molds a year, but for us you know, talking about chickens the mold is an annual occurrence. If it happens more than once a year, something went wrong. We just need to figure it out and correct it. What we need to know about the mold right is the real questions are is how effective is your mold right? And if you do it right, the mold can be extremely effective in transforming your birds and keep them healthy for a lot more generations.

1:46 How long does it take? So, for the average chicken just doesn't include the heavy breeds. You know, rip and I were just talking about it before we came on, but you're looking at about 45 to 60 days for your four or five, six pound chickens. Now your bigger stuff, or your birds with a lot more plumage to them, longer tail feathers, things like that. You could be looking at 80, 85 days. You know it's going to take them longer to get them back to that bull feather, get them back to looking the way you want them to look. So you need to set the calendar and be ready to plan your mold and people ask you know what do I do to help it?

2:29 Right, so we're going to go into the in-depth on this. But so really you want to. During the mold, the birds are running a fever. They're not feeling the best. They're really grumpy. You're grumpy because they look like crap. You know. They're just not the prettiest birds anymore. So everybody needs to keep calm. You need to do whatever you can to keep your birds as calm as possible. Keep them as comfortable as possible. Realize that they're running a couple more body degrees temperature than normal, so we need to take steps to increase the airflow. Keep them comfortable. Make sure that they're properly fed and watered. That's not difficult, but it just takes a little bit more understanding.

3:12 You know on the manager side to take care of it. So you know what is the mold for. And, by the way, type in your questions whenever you have them. If I say something that triggers a question, we want to make sure that we get them answered. This is kind of a odd subject and a lot of people have questions, so don't be bashful. What's going on during the mold? And I don't know that everybody understands this, but so what should happen during the mold is a weight management plan. So the birds should be going through a diet and you know we're doing body repair.

3:52 Everybody just looks at it like their birds look ecky, the feathers are falling out. They don't kind of comprehend what's really going on on the inside of that bird. But there's a real transformation going on inside the chicken, not just the feathers. So the managing factors are way A good, effective mold is. The birds are going to lose somewhere between 10 and 20% of their body weight. This depends on their internal fat. Okay, okay. So we want to melt all of those internal fat deposits off during the molt, or as much as we can. So that can be 10 to 20%, depending on the amount of that internal fat. We also, during this time, we want to shrink the ovaries and the testicles and get them back down, to pull it size or cockerel size, so they're going to be a lot more effective.

4:44 We're going to end up with better fertility and better egg production. So your hatchability should improve. If the molt went well and we did what we wanted to do, your next round of fertility for hatching eggs should be better, and so that's what we're shooting for. Anyway, I want to encourage you all to take pictures of your birds not every bird. You know your key birds, the birds that you have the highest level of interest in. I know you're interested in all of them, but everybody has their special ones. So take some good pictures, get some close-ups. You know different angles, different views, and we want to be able to do before and after pictures, so hopefully you can get pictures before the feathers start falling off.

5:33 You can get them while they're still fairly well feathered. I mean, get as close as you can. You want to look at your feather quality. You know you may want to spread out some feathers, but if you have a macro lens and you can do it, get really close up. You know, get some of those very detailed feather, you know. So you're looking at the composition of the feather. All right, the hard part, and I think this is where everybody has a lot more questions I, you know, haven't said anything, but anybody doesn't particularly know already how do you feed during the molt? Okay, so Karen picks on me all the time about this a little bit, but so a molt feed is going to be at 12%, roughly somewhere close to 12% protein.

6:20 It's going to be a low energy, very high fiber and we're going to feed a controlled amount, right? So for birds two to four pounds, you're going to feed two ounces of molt feed. For birds in that four to six pound range, you're going to feed three ounces of molt feed. And you need to weigh this. This isn't a guess, this isn't a free choice. So if you're saying, well, I just let my birds eat whatever they want, then you can turn off YouTube and go do something else, because this isn't for you All right To do a good molt, we have to be weighing the feed. Once you know a unit of measure whether it's a quarter cup, eight to the cup you can use that, but you need to at least weigh it at some point to know what you're starting with.

7:06 So would you weigh according to what your birds weigh now or what you want them to weigh at the end of the molt? So my birds would be in the eight to 10, but I would want them to end up in the four to six. Okay, not quite that loud, but you can't get from there to there. I want them to end up. So they're at eight and I want them to end up at seven. Do you know what I mean, right? I mean, obviously you could do three and a half right? This isn't magic. Yeah, it's not. So. It's kind of where your target range is, where you want them to be. So, yes, if you are looking for a six pound bird, you want to feed them for that four to six pound ring, not where their starting weight is, but where their target weight is.

7:51 That's a good question. So where they should be according to the standard or where you want them to be, even for eight to 10 pound birds, you're going to feed four out. That sounds like a lot. But look, this is a 50% reduction in calories, dang it. Almost a 50% reduction in protein, right. So the reason for the really high fiber is to bulk them up, right? So they feel satiated, they feel full, but they're not full of starches and carbohydrates and fats and proteins, right? And this is not accrual and inhumane.

8:31 This isn't when we talk about forced molding. Back in the old days, like you would take away their light for 48 hours and you take away their feed for three days, and that didn't work. Then you took away their water for a couple of days. So that's almost getting to the point of being outlawed, but that's the old term of forced molding. Theoretically, you haven't said anything yet that you couldn't just do when the bird was killed, the moment, right, I mean so far, all the things you've listed weigh them ahead of time, feed them a different feed, wait till they lose. I mean theoretically, you could do that for every bird individually if you had the patience for that Whenever that happens.

9:19 Yeah, you are right, you could do that on an individual bird basis, but I you know you got more than 10 birds. I don't think that's going to happen. Otherwise you'd have to have them completely segregated. So you know the birds would have to then be individualized or individual pens. This still allows for grouping, like you could still run as long as you had enough feeder space for everybody to eat. At the same time. You could run a group of 100 birds and it doesn't matter, because you're going to feed them the known quantity and based on weight. You know you're going to feed what they need, you know. But Do you have any logic or any knowledge as to why Purina wants to do feather fixer and raise the protein during the molt?

10:08 You hear that a lot, and so they're already trying to get them out of the mold. They didn't even get the bird a chance to molt right and do everything it used to do Like it didn't get a chance to drop all of its feathers, didn't get a chance to lose any body weight, didn't get a chance to shrink ovaries, didn't get it. You know we neglected all of that. I mean, okay, I don't want to get shot for this and no hate mail please. But here's the deal. Right, as chicken lovers, we're trying to help our birds and we want to fix them as quick as we can. Purina is taking advantage of that emotional feeling and saying, oh, feed this and help them to the molt faster.

10:51 Well, okay, so that's what happened. But if we don't lose that internal body weight, the birds might look good faster, but they're not any healthier. So if people are doing breeding, you know we're not hoping perpetuate our line further down the road. We're just going to keep internal fat for another year and add to it and going to compound the problem. Jeff, could I throw a comment in there? on that. Over the past couple of years. I don't know how many folks I've talked to, but they have been, and these are primarily large falbreders. But they, almost to a person, say, my birds laid pretty good as bullets, but then when they got into that second year's hens production went to pot and I said, probably because your birds are too fat, and I would explain what to do.

11:44 And some did, some didn't, but the ones that didn't rarely came back to me and said I tried what you were talking about and you were right. It makes a big difference, yeah it makes a huge difference. So a bullet should lay it's still going to lay the best right. But the second cycle, the second cycle, should be 85 or 90% of what she laid as a bullet. So the great breeders that are out there they kept track of how many pigs their bullets laid right and that next lay cycle should be, like I said, 85, 90% of what the first lay cycle was. The third lay cycle should be 85 or 90% of what the second lay cycle was, right.

12:27 So they lose approximately 10 or 15% each year in those last lay cycles. Now, somewhere out around year four or five, they kind of level off and so the fourth lay cycle, fifth lay cycle, they're all going to be. Unless we screw something up, they're all going to be pretty much the same. She kind of holds off their four, five and six and then seven. She starts declining. In eight, nine she's really tapering off. You're lucky if you're getting eggs out of her at that point. Definitely there are some very productive hens still out at year seven and eight and enough to create progeny, a high quality egg that you can have so that you don't lose that family line.

13:12 That is very possible. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there shaking their head like Jeff's lost his mind. He's crazy, this ain't going to happen. Yeah, I'm getting a lot to report to seven eight year old hens still hatching eggs. They're doing fine. But number two this mold, is part of that procedure. So back to the managing factors. On the mold, you need to be in a situation where you can reduce and control lighting on most birds. We need to get the lights down to 10 or 11 hours. So you're going to have to have some indoor housing for them where you can control sunrise.

13:54 I'm not worried about sunset, I'm worried about when they first see light in the morning. So having that sort of environment or that sort of housing that you can control that light exposure. So the biggest one and I left it for last is going to be the environment that the birds are in. So mold inevitably happens for most people during the hottest time of the year. Air flow having good air flow is going to be critical. So you may want to invest in vans or something else. Help them. You want to make sure that you got plenty of shade. Try and figure out a way to make sure that you're getting good cool water throughout the day as cool as possible.

14:38 You can even think about putting ice in a water reservoir that then gravity flows, just so that you know that you're getting cooler water. Remember, they got a fever going on inside it. Everything we can do to help them be more comfortable is going to be good, and the other thing to think about is plenty of space. They may need more space than you typically allow them throughout the rest of the year, so that's going to be really grouchy and, like I said, they're going through a transfer. I want to avoid cannibalism, so giving them a little bit of extra space. You got to watch their personality and see if they're getting really irritable. We just don't need them to start fighting and carrying on and tearing each other up.

15:20 That doesn't lead to a good looking burden on the other side. Jeff, along those lines. I think some of that is somewhat breed dependent. Your larger birds, cochens, orpingtons and Brahmas, seem to be very mild. They don't kind of get to fight or fight thing going on during the month. Most of your dual purpose breeds tend to be on the heavier side, so again they have a little bit calmer temperament. But where I see it just go absolutely berserk is in some of the game breeds, some of the Mediterranean breeds, those little high energy things. They get ill and fractious at the drop of a hat when they're molting.

16:02 Pretty much any stress. You know those game year birds. Anything that triggers them with stress is going to cause them to want to rip into something. So we just need to be careful and conscious of that. All right, can we talk light for a little bit here? Yeah. All right. So right there, telling me that I have to control the lighting and reduce it makes me not want to do it because I don't want to build. I'm not going to build inside facilities, just with her. That's not in the cards. Okay then, but you also said that most birds molt in the hottest part of the year, which is not when the light is. So I mean they naturally molt when the light is longer than that.

16:47 I mean that's October here or late October in North Carolina, when you get down to 11 hours. So can you try it without controlling? the light yeah no, look, they want to molt this time of year. That's fine, we're just. You know, if you can get the lights down during this time, so if you can reduce the light intensity, okay. So just something that provides them. Put little blinders on a little Peepers, peepers. Just something to shade them, so it keeps them. So light intensity is one of their activity stimulants. So, you know, a little bit of shade, they're going to be a little bit more mellow, you know, less grumpy if they can hang out in the shade.

17:33 No, you don't have to get the lights down here, but if you do get the lights down for people who want to hatch in the fall we've talked about this before but if you wanted to hatch in the fall, then you can start stimulating with light and gradually bringing them back up, right. So, and that'll come back into egg light, you know, in the fall of the year. But reducing light is going to reduce their activity level, or you know, and their aggressiveness. It's just going to keep them calm. So the lighting is more of the calmness thing. And you've got heavier breeds, so they're not necessarily high-strung anyway.

18:14 But for people that might have a high-strung breed, keeping them more shaded, more, you know, muted light is going to help out. But if you want to do fall breeding, getting those lights down to that 10 or 11 hours so that you can, then, you know, stimulate them back up, it is going to be beneficial. When did you hatch? Were you a fall hatcher? Yes, and I did that because I was dealing with the hot temperatures and I was getting big cones and beefy cones and huge waddles and I found out that by hatching in the fall and then the winter I could control that to some degree and shrink those cones and waddles back down to where they look more like they should.

19:01 All right, I'm going to. I know I keep. You knew I was going to do this to you, so that's fine. Talk again about the stages. So it sounds to me like there are almost three stages. There's like a starting the molt, there's a in the molt and then there's a coming out of molt. Yes, that is true. There's basically three stages of the molt. So you got to trigger the molt and get that. Where you're dropping that feed down, hopefully you don't have to take water away, but you know you're changing over to that other feed. Now to do a humane molt, you know where you're not doing feed withdrawal and all that other stuff. Look, it's going to take about five to seven days to start really start seeing those feathers falling off.

19:45 That seems really fast yeah. No, they're not going to be bald in five to seven days. No, I know but you're going to start seeing a lot more. You know feathers in the litter you know are on the ground. It's going to take five or six, seven days before you start seeing that it's. You know they're not going to be bald for a couple of weeks. So I saw somebody had asked how long do you feed the 12%? Well, you feed the 12% until you, until you actually achieve the body weight that you're looking for. So that's going to be the pull-it-weight based on the breed standard. You know we're trying to get somewhere close to the pull-it-weight. Or whatever your birds were. Or the cockerel yeah. Right.

20:25 You see that straight. You know, and you may or may not go that far. It just depends on how tight of the body what you want the bird to look for. Like you know what is your goal. So for somebody who's more in it on the serious breeding side and not necessarily on the show side, you know getting them really close to that pull-it-weight and is going to be really important Because that is going to affect that next lay cycle and the number of eggs you're going to get and the fertility of those eggs in that next lay cycle. So that's purely on the owner. Show folks may only lose 10%, but I think they're still breeding right, they still want offspring, they still want progeny.

21:07 So trying to get close to that pull-it-weight is going to be important and I think Rick correct me if I'm wrong but I think if you can get closer to that pull-it-weight when you bring them back out, I think your feather quality is by far better when you drop that body weight. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Be sure to listen next week when we'll be talking about after-the-mote care best practices. So until then, be sure to keep your birds happy, healthy and productive.