Are your chickens losing a lot of feathers? Here’s why… This is called molting and occurs every year when the days get shorter. Molting and growing new feathers requires a lot of energy so chickens usually stop laying and build up their nutrient reserves. Feathers are made up of mostly protein, so I give my flock a feed that consists of at least 18-20% protein while they recover. Then I switch back to 16%-18% for the winter, unless it gets especially cold (we are mild here). It is important to k