Some chickens go through what is a called a slow molt and some do a fast molt. And of course most are somewhere in between. That’s not determined much by how fast the feathers grow back, that’s determined by how fast they fall out. To make it more complicated, some chickens are set up genetically to grow feathers faster than others, but the big factor is how fast they fall out. Some will lose feathers so slowly that you wouldn’t know they are molting by looking at them. You see extra feathers floating around the coop and run and eventually the chicken looks real sleek and pretty. These can take five months to finish a molt. When they molt, there is a certain progression. It starts at the head and works its way down from there.
With the fast molters, the feathers fallout in chunks. Those chickens look horrible. With their big patches of bare skin you think they will freeze to death when it happens in the fall, but they don’t. With these, the molt is usually over in a couple of months, maybe even less. Of course, most are in between. Here is one of my fast molters from a few years back.
A few years back they had a molting contest on BYC. The winner had a lot in common with
@Kassaundra's Rudy.
Feathers are made mostly of protein, not calcium. I don’t think calcium deficiency is your problem, especially if your egg shells are not thin. When they are growing the feathers back increasing protein will help with that some, not increasing calcium. Some people that raise show birds drizzle oil on their feed to help make their feathers shiny. I don’t do that, don’t know how healthy it is in the long run. But then they may only do that for a few weeks before a show. I don’t know how much they use or how they do it. Many of the show people use something high in protein like Calf Manna to supplement their feed too to increase protein. Calf Manna or high protein feeds not only helps their bodies get big but helps the feathers look really nice. I don’t do that either. I’m not after pretty chickens, I’m after chickens for meat and eggs without spending even more of a fortune on feed than I have to. But we all have our own unique goals.
Some hens have feathers more brittle than others. It’s genetic. The feathers are just easy to break in day to day living. Many a rooster and especially a young cockerel has literally lost his head because he is so rough on the hens when the real cause was the hens’ feathers are just really brittle.
Even without being especially brittle feathers just get old and worn out. If the entire feather doesn’t break, the fluff gets worn off the shaft. The longer they go after a molt, the more dull and ragged they look. But after a full molt, they look awfully sleek and pretty.
If an entire feather falls out, all the shaft, the feather will grow back, probably in just a few weeks. If any part of the shaft is left in there, the feather will not grow back until the next molt.
I don’t know exactly what is going on with your hens. Some of my first year hens that did not molt are looking pretty ragged, including one with that bare patch just above her tail. I do think they shed some feathers to get ready for the heat, just like they grow feathers to get ready for the cold. My chicks raised in cold weather feather out faster than chicks raised in warm weather. It may be that yours are just getting ragged from living an active life, especially if their feathers are a bit brittle. I don’t expect mine to get to looking any better until they go through a full molt this fall. I’m not going to worry about that. If it is that important to you, you can try to pluck out any bits of shaft you see in the feather follicle. That might cause the feather to grow back sooner.
