Joanne - The source of our chicken feed recipe and some of the
ingredients is the Fertrell Company is located in Bainbridge, PA,
1-800-347-1566, Jeff Mattocks is the main chicken guy on the staff. They
should be able to put you in touch with someone in your area of PA who
could get you the Fertrell blend of chicken feed, both layer mash and
broiler mix.
There are plenty of others out there with far more chicken experience
than I, who will hopefully check in with their molting advice. However,
I would guess your hens should start molting pretty soon. From my
limited experience with molting, I have concluded that molting isn't
terribly impressive - the hens get to look a little more moth-eaten,
their feathers especially back toward the tail become much thinner, and
layng backs off a bit. Then the feathers grow back in and you're back in
business. Molting apparently happens about once a year in laying hens,
but depending on the quality of the hen, she may lay through it or not.
Also, the books say that molt can last from 3 weeks to 6 weeks, depending
on the hens - and if the hens in your flock are overlapping with their
timing, you may not really notice much difference. The chicken books I
have say that if molting is more noticable -if lots of feathers fall out
and grow back slowly, this indicates a protein deficiency in the diet, so
I guess our feed ration must be doing pretty good for protein. Also, one
good chicken production book I picked up at a used book sale, a textbook
called 'Poultry Production' by Card and Nesheim, 1966, says "It should be
remembered also that the time and rate of molt are influenced by a
considerable extent by the weight and physical condition of the hens, and
by the environmental conditions including feeding and management." In
other words, if you have happy well fed hens, don't dread molt, there may
not be much to see.
One comment on carpenter ants - my husband's mother, who grew up in rural
Germany, says that the traditional treatment is to throw the boiling
potato water on the ant hills, after you boil potatoes for dinner. It
wouldn't hurt to try! Maybe even just boiling water regularly would be a
worthy treatment, but it might be the salt and starches in the potato
water that does it. It sure won't hurt the chickens.
Good luck with your birds
Mary-Howell Martens (also mother of 3 rooster-challenged children)
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