How to recognise a natural moult in laying hens, how long it lasts, how to feed through it and how to work out whether to keep or sell an old flock.
Halaal Farms Ghana team4 October 2026 · 14 min read
If the floor of your layer house looks as though a pillow burst overnight, and the egg trays are coming back lighter each day, a flock that has been laying for a year or more is probably going into moult. Moult is a normal process. It is not a disease and it does not need medicine. It does cost money, because a hen that is growing feathers is eating without laying. What you decide in the first two or three weeks sets how large that cost becomes.
Moulting is the orderly shedding of worn feathers and the growth of a new coat. In a laying hen it is tied to a rest of the reproductive system. The ovary shrinks, the oviduct regresses to a fraction of its working size, and egg production stops. The comb and wattles, kept large and red by the hormones of a hen in lay, shrink and turn pale.
While she is out of production the hen rebuilds what a long laying period has used up. She replaces her feathers, restores the calcium store in her bones and loses some of the fat that builds up around the oviduct in older birds. This is why the first eggs after a moult usually have better shells than the last eggs before it.
Commercial hybrids have been selected to lay for far longer than a village hen before this rest comes, and a well-managed flock can pass 80 weeks of age without a full moult. Sooner or later, though, an ageing flock starts to shed.
Poultry books written for Europe say that shortening autumn days bring on the moult. Ghana sits close to the equator, so the gap between the longest and shortest day of the year is well under an hour in the south and only a little over an hour in the far north. Day length alone seldom triggers a moult here. Three other things do.
The commonest cause is age. After about 12 to 14 months of production, roughly 70 to 80 weeks of age, more and more hens stop to moult. This is the natural moult, and it creeps through a flock bird by bird.
A hard stress can push hens into moult at any age. The usual culprits are feed running out for a day or more, drinkers left dry for several hours in hot weather, a sudden change to a poorer feed, a run of very hot days, disease, a move to another house, or a heavy load of worms or mites. A stress moult often shows first as bare necks, with production falling by five to fifteen points within a week or two. Look back through your daily farm records for what happened ten to fourteen days before the feathers started falling.
Farms that add evening light to hold the birds on a 15 or 16 hour day carry a particular risk. If the bulbs stay off for a week because of power cuts, the hens drop back to about 12 hours of daylight, and a sharp cut in day length is one of the strongest moult signals a hen can receive. If you add light, you need a backup that keeps it steady.
A young flock that sheds neck feathers at 30 to 35 weeks, shortly after peak, is a special case. Those pullets usually came into lay underweight and cannot eat enough to carry both body growth and a high rate of lay. The cure lies in the rearing period, covered in the guide to rearing pullets from day-old to point of lay.
A true moult follows a fixed sequence. Feathers go first from the head, then the neck, the breast, the body and back, the wings and last the tail. A hen with a bare neck and a full tail is early in her moult. A hen with a ragged tail and new quills on her neck and breast is well on the way back.
The wing gives you a clock. Spread one wing of a hen. The ten long flight feathers on the outer half are the primaries, and a short feather called the axial separates them from the secondaries on the inner half. Primaries are dropped in order, starting next to the axial feather and working out towards the wing tip. A new primary needs about six weeks to reach full length, and each following feather finishes about two weeks behind the one before it.
That arithmetic separates good hens from poor ones:
Hens that hold their old feathers longest and then moult quickly are the best layers in the house. Hens that start early and moult slowly are the poorest, and they are the first to go. The hands-on checks that confirm this are set out in our article on identifying and culling hens that are not laying.
Along with feather loss you will see a small, pale, scaly comb, a dry puckered vent and pubic bones that have closed to about one finger apart. In birds fed on yellow maize, the yellow colour returns to the vent, eye ring, beak and shanks once laying stops. New feathers appear as bluish quills full of blood, called pin feathers. They are tender, and a moulting hen dislikes being handled.
Feather loss has several causes, and the remedy differs for each. Check before you assume.
| What you see | Likely cause | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Loss in sequence from head and neck backwards, pin feathers growing in, pale shrunken comb, loose feathers all over the litter | Moult | Flock age, wing primaries, any feed, water or light break two weeks earlier |
| Bare or bloody patches on the back, tail base and around the vent, broken feather stubs, few feathers on the floor because birds eat them | Feather pecking | Light intensity, crowding, feed protein and salt |
| Ragged, dirty feathers below the vent, scabs, restless birds at night, pale combs in hens still laying | Lice or mites | Part the feathers under the vent with a torch after dark |
| Worn feathers on the front of the neck or the breast only, in caged hens | Rubbing on the feed trough or cage wire | Trough height and cage front |
If your house matches the second or third row, see the articles on feather pecking and cannibalism and on worms, lice and mites.
For one healthy hen that moults fast, expect 8 to 12 weeks from the last egg to the first egg of the new sequence. A slow moulter takes 16 weeks or more. About two weeks before she restarts, her comb swells and reddens again, which gives you early notice.
A flock is a different matter. Hens do not begin together, so a natural moult rarely takes production to zero. The laying percentage sags, often to somewhere between 20 and 40 per cent, sits there for some weeks and then recovers as the early starters come back while the late ones are still bare. From the first drift downwards to a settled second-cycle level commonly takes three to four months. That long, ragged trough is what makes a natural moult expensive.
The weeks before a moult give warning. Shells become thinner and paler, more eggs crack in the crate, and the daily count slides by a point or two each week. Plot your laying percentage weekly and the bend in the curve shows well before the floor fills with feathers.
Feathers are close to nine-tenths protein, rich in the sulphur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine. A hen regrowing her whole coat has a real protein demand even though she is laying nothing. The most common mistake is to see the egg count fall and stretch the feed with extra maize or wheat bran to save money. That dilutes protein at the moment the bird needs it, and the moult drags on.
Handle moulting hens as little as possible. Pin feathers bleed when knocked, and blood on bare skin invites pecking from pen mates. Put off catching, crating and moving house until the new feathers have opened. Remove any hen with a bleeding quill until it has dried.
Keep the lighting steady. If you give evening light, carry on with the same hours. Half-naked birds feel cold, so on harmattan nights in the north, and when rainy-season wind blows through a house in the south, drop the curtains on the windward side after dark.
A moult is also a sensible time to deal with parasites. With few eggs being laid, any withdrawal period on a treatment costs you less. Ask your vet whether the flock should be dewormed or the house treated for mites while production is low.
In some countries large egg companies deliberately take a whole flock out of lay at once, at around 65 to 70 weeks, using a low-nutrient diet and a sharp cut in light hours. Every hen rests and returns together, which replaces the ragged trough of a natural moult with a short planned gap.
The older method of removing feed altogether for several days is a serious welfare problem. It has been prohibited or dropped from industry standards in a number of countries, and we do not recommend it. The non-fasting programmes that replaced it depend on houses where light can be controlled, which an open-sided house with 12 hours of daylight cannot offer. They also need sample birds weighed every few days against a target weight loss, a specially formulated diet, and close watching of mortality, which climbs quickly in hot weather. If you run a large flock and want to consider an induced moult, plan it with a poultry vet and a nutritionist. Do not copy a schedule from the internet.
You have three choices when an old flock starts to moult: sell every bird as spent hens and restock, keep the whole flock for a second cycle, or cull the slow moulters and keep the best until replacements are ready. The right answer depends on your prices, so work it out on paper.
Start with the laying percentage at which a hen pays for her own feed:
Break-even lay over feed = (feed per hen per day in kg × feed price per kg) ÷ price of one egg
As an example only, suppose layer feed costs GH₵ 400 for a 50 kg bag (GH₵ 8 a kg), a hen eats 115 grams a day and a crate of 30 eggs sells for GH₵ 60 at the farm gate (GH₵ 2 an egg). Feed per hen is 0.115 × 8 = GH₵ 0.92 a day. Divide by GH₵ 2 and you get 0.46. At 46 per cent lay the eggs only just pay for feed. Labour, medication, crates and losses come on top, so the real break-even is higher, often in the mid-fifties. Put your own prices in. The poultry profit calculator will help you test different figures.
Now cost the trough. Using the same example prices for 1,000 hens, assume a ten-week moult in which the flock averages 25 per cent lay and eats 100 grams a hen each day.
| Item (example figures) | Working | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Feed eaten in 70 days | 1,000 × 0.100 kg × 70 = 7,000 kg at GH₵ 8 | GH₵ 56,000 |
| Eggs sold in 70 days | 1,000 × 25% × 70 = 17,500 eggs at GH₵ 2 | GH₵ 35,000 |
| Shortfall over feed | 56,000 less 35,000 | GH₵ 21,000 |
| Labour for ten weeks | Example share of workers' pay | GH₵ 5,000 |
| Cost per hen to get through the moult | 26,000 ÷ 1,000 | GH₵ 26 |
A replacement pullet has an entry cost too. Add the chick (layer chicks start from GH₵ 23 on our current price list, and prices change), roughly 7 kg of feed to 18 weeks, and allowances for vaccines, brooding heat, litter, labour and rearing losses. With feed at the example GH₵ 8 a kg and example allowances totalling GH₵ 23, that comes to about GH₵ 102 a pullet.
The moulted hen is far cheaper to bring into lay, GH₵ 26 against GH₵ 102. But she gives you fewer eggs for it. Suppose the second cycle runs 30 weeks at an average of 68 per cent, which is about 143 eggs, while the new pullet lays for 60 weeks at an average of 80 per cent, which is 336 eggs. Now add feed per egg to entry cost per egg:
| Example | Feed per egg | Entry cost per egg | Total per egg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moulted hen, 68% average | 0.92 ÷ 0.68 = GH₵ 1.35 | 26 ÷ 143 = GH₵ 0.18 | GH₵ 1.53 |
| New pullet, 80% average | 0.92 ÷ 0.80 = GH₵ 1.15 | 102 ÷ 336 = GH₵ 0.30 | GH₵ 1.45 |
In this example the new flock produces eggs about 8 pesewas cheaper, or GH₵ 2.40 a crate. The gap is small, and it turns on one figure. If the moulted hens averaged 72 per cent the two would be level. If they averaged 60 per cent, each egg would cost about GH₵ 1.74, far above the new flock. The spent-hen sale is left out of both rows on purpose, because you will sell the old hens either now or later.
A flock that has moulted does not become young again. Expect a peak several points below the first-cycle peak and a faster decline after it. Shell quality is good for the first couple of months and then falls away more quickly than it did the first time. Eggs are bigger, which means more cracks in the crate and in transport. Mortality runs higher. Six to eight useful months is a realistic expectation before the flock drops below break-even again.
Keep weekly records through the second cycle, decide in advance the laying percentage at which the flock goes, and stick to it. A third cycle is seldom worth attempting.
The cheapest way to manage moult is to see it coming. Write the hatch date of every flock on the house door. When a flock passes 55 weeks, decide when it will leave, count back 20 weeks, and book the next batch of chicks for that week.
At Halaal Farms Ghana we supply Hy-Line, Lohmann and Bovans layer chicks and point-of-lay pullets, and we deliver to all 16 regions. If you are unsure whether to carry an old flock on or replace it, call 024 915 1503 or send the order form with your flock's age and current laying percentage. Advice is free, and the price, hatch date and delivery cost are confirmed before you pay anything.
Most commercial brown and white layers reach a full natural moult after 12 to 14 months of production, which is roughly 70 to 80 weeks of age. Well-managed modern strains can lay longer before moulting. A flock that sheds heavily much earlier than this has usually been pushed into a stress moult by a break in feed, water or light, by heat, or by disease.
A hen in full moult stops laying, because her ovary and oviduct shrink while she regrows feathers. A flock rarely stops completely, though, because hens start and finish at different times. Production commonly drifts down to somewhere between a fifth and two fifths of the hens laying each day, stays there for some weeks, then climbs back.
No tonic or additive is known to shorten a moult reliably. What helps is steady access to a layer feed with its full protein level, clean cool water at all times, a calm house and control of lice, mites and worms. Diluting the feed with extra maize or bran to save money has the opposite effect and delays the return to lay.
Yes. Eggs laid by hens that have not yet stopped, or that have just restarted, are normal food. In the weeks before a moult shells tend to be thinner and paler, so handle and grade those eggs carefully. The first eggs after a moult are usually larger with stronger shells than the flock was producing before it stopped.
Written by the Halaal Farms Ghana team. We hatch and import day-old chicks at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and deliver to all 16 regions. This article is general guidance for farmers. For diagnosis and treatment of sick birds, speak to a vet or your district veterinary office.
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