The molt looks alarming and is entirely normal: hens shed old, worn feathers and grow a new set, usually over several weeks, and their feed has to change to pay for it. A feather is almost entirely protein, and a hen regrowing a whole body of feathers at once is doing work that draws heavily on protein all year round. Feeding through the molt means raising the protein, lowering your expectations of the egg basket, and leaving the birds alone to get on with it.
Raise the Protein to Around 18 to 20 Percent
Feed a higher-protein ration during the molt, commonly around 18 to 20 percent protein, stated plainly on the feed label or in the ration you mix. Many keepers move molting hens onto a ration in that range for the duration, rather than stretching a standard layer ration and hoping it will do. The reason is visible in the pen: a hen short of protein grows feathers slowly, may produce thin, brittle pin feathers, and can start pulling protein from the feathers of her flock mates, which turns a feeding gap into a pecking problem. Read the new feathers as your progress report. Smooth, full pin feathers opening evenly across the body say the ration is doing its work; slow, patchy regrowth says check the protein level and how much of the ration each hen actually gets at the feeder.
Switch rations gradually over several days, mixing new into old, and keep clean water available at all times, because feather growth and drinking rise together.
Protein-Rich Extras, in Their Place
Extras can help, as long as they stay extras. Protein-rich foods from generic classes, such as dried mealworms, make a useful top-up scattered in small handfuls after the main ration has been eaten, so the balanced feed remains the meal and the extras remain a supplement to it. Cooked egg, chopped and fed back, is another protein-rich extra keepers use in small amounts. What does not help is filling molting hens up on low-protein fillers, which leave less room in the crop for the ration that is actually rebuilding them. Keep extras to a small share of the day, offer them at the same point in the routine, and watch body condition by handling a bird gently now and then: you want a hen who feels covered but not fat when her feathers come back in.
Laying Pauses, and Pin Feathers Are Left Alone
Expect laying to pause during the molt, and do not read it as a failure of the feed. A hen cannot build feathers and shells at full rate at the same time, and her body chooses feathers first, so eggs stop or dwindle and return as the new feathers finish and open. Feather regrowth is the timeline here, not a calendar promise: a fast molter may be done in a few weeks, a slow one may take much longer, and both are normal.
Treat the birds gently while they are full of pin feathers. Those new feather shafts are tender and carry a blood supply, so handling hurts, and pin feathers are never pulled, poked or trimmed. Pick a molting hen up only when you must, support her fully, and otherwise check her at the feeder and the perch rather than in your hands. Keep the house calm, skip rearranging perches and nest boxes mid-molt, and give the flock space, because a molting hen is sore, a little defensive, and entitled to some peace. Rosa serves the morning ration and Eli handles the evening water check, and both of them follow that same gentle, leave-alone approach for every bird in the house. The molt ration and its protein level are written in the Care Teams plan for the house, so a relief feeder serves the same feed instead of guessing.
Note dropped feathers and returning eggs in the Care Teams diary on KinsLe, so the flock's progress through the molt stays visible week by week.