bullying or molting?

[kanami]

i’m so stressedddd, i’ve noticed some of my chooks are losing feathers and this is coming up on year one of me being a chicken tender and this is a first for me. i need the experts to look at all these photos and help me see if they are getting bullied or if some are molting or both! one day i even saw one of my girls picking at the neck feathers of one of them, can they groom each other?? i swatted her off when i saw that happening… i think i’m seeing some pin feathers and i can definitely take more photos, they are quite hard to catch so this is all i’ve got so far ;-;

thank you so much to everyone who helps me out

 

[sourland]

They are molting.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sure looks and sounds like molting to me. It might help you to read this.

https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/MF2308.pdf

I don't know if you are located, north or south of the equator, but in either case it may seem like a strange time of the year to have a molt. If the only reason they molted was the days getting shorter in the fall that would be correct. But that is not the only thing that can cause a molt, several other things can. Often it is a change in lighting, either on purpose or accidental. Anything that stresses them like a change in housing, a change in the pecking order (maybe adding or removing a fairly dominant chicken, male or female), running out of water for a while, a predator scare either real or assumed, or basically any other change. You may never know why they are molting this time of the year wherever you are. I had one molt one July-August as she was raising baby chicks she had hatched. She started back laying eggs about the time the others molted and she laid all through the winter.

As long as they are acting healthy I don't think you have anything to worry about.