Chickens are molting (and it's not pretty)

If you have been to our farm recently, you might have noticed that some chickens look a bit ...bad: They have unsightly bald patches of skin that one would not expect in a healthy, happy chicken.

Everyone doesn't have to look like a model, right?!

Now I know that it's because the chickens are molting, but when I first observed the bald spots some weeks ago, I was at loss what the cause of such massive feather loss might be.
The assorted possible reasons included stress (I tried hard but couldn't think of any source of stress of our chickens), disease (other than bald backs, chickens appeared healthy), bad nutrition (for a while I actually increased the proportion of ready-made feed to make sure I wasn't screwing up nutritional balance with too much of local sources, but nothing changed.), skin parasites (I checked bad-looking chickens for mite and the like, and found nothing), pecking (there is clear hierarchy in the flock and small fights do occur, but I never witnessed the kind of aggressive pecking that would lead to such feather loss.), and roosters (repeated jumping on the hen's back can damage her feathers - this still seems to be the case for popular hens, even though we now have only one rooster.) None of these options looked plausible, and no wonder, the answer was much simple: our chickens entered the molting period.

Molting 
Molting is a natural process usually occuring in late summer or in fall, when days get shorter and chickens finish their egg laying cycle (about 10-month long). Not all chickens follow the textbook description and some start molting earlier, some later, and even their molting patterns are individual. It can take two to four months to replace the old feathers with new ones, so we can expect chickens' shabby look to continue for a while.

This is the worst-looking chicken in our flock. This girl is losing all
feathers at once (unlike other chickens who mostly have just bald backs)...

... but she's also regrowing them much faster than others
(the sharp 'needles' sticking out of the skin are new feathers.)

The aesthetic consequence of molting is temporary unsightliness, which is fine. The economic consequence is more serious - during molting, chickens lay fewer eggs, and of worse quality. Commercial egg farms deal with this "problem" in one of two ways: 1. they kill the chickens (and replace them with new ones); 2. they do forced molting - induce molt in the chickens by starving them for two weeks, during which they regrow their feathers quickly and start laying a lot of pretty eggs again for a few more months. This forced molting is considered animal abuse and banned in many countries, but not in Japan. I know of at least one small farmer raising hens in barns （平飼い）who does forced molting in his flock.

Which leads us to the question: What is the plan on our farm, which is, after all, a commercial operation. Needless to say, we won't do the forced molting. The plan has been to reduce the number of chickens by the end of this year. Of course reducing the number of chickens is euphemism for killing them, and that's where we bumped into a problem: we are not able to kill them. I tried and I couldn't do it. The line between a "pet" and an "economic animal" has always blurry on our farm. Just as most people would (and should) find it difficult to cut their cat's or hamster's throat and let it bleed out, so do we find it difficult to kill our chickens. We'll have to figure out what to do, and how to do it.

In the meantime, here are a few pics from yesterday. Title: Enjoying life, chicken version.
(Molting is only problem for humans.)

Minto-kun died

Our goat Minto-kun died on Sunday.

We knew that Minto-kun wouldn't live long, but we didn't think he would die this soon. I don't know what to say. I will just explain what happened - it's explanation for our friends and customers who came to the farm and knew Minto-kun and liked him. Everyone who knew Minto-kun, liked him. He was such a charming character.

Minto-kun. Died on October 30, 2016.

Minto-kun and Akio-kun, always side by side.

A few days after Akio-kun died, Minto-kun suddenly fell ill too. One morning we found him lying on the ground, unable to stand up. It was a nightmarish dejavu just a few days after we found Akio-kun like that.
We took Minto-kun to the doctor where he received emergency treatment which saved his life that day. But after what seemed like a slight recovery, he got weak again. He was unable to stand but he still had appetite. We kept him warm and comfortable, with plenty of his favorite treats, but he was getting weaker. On Sunday afternoon he died. It was exactly one week after Akio-kun.

Minto-kun strolling around Akio-kun's grave. Still healthy.

Minto-kun a few hours after the emergency visit to the doctor,
eating his favorite persimmon :)

Minto-kun's last picture standing on his own (and in a very pretty garden.)

This will sound like a terrible cliche but it really seemed as if Minto-kun was so lonely after Akio-kun's death that he chose to join him rather than stay with us.
I know there must be a more scientific explanation, and I wish I had it. But we don't really know why Minto-kun suddenly got sick. For the three months that Minto-kun spent on our farm, he appeared to be healthy - steadily recovering from the malnutrition he suffered in his previous place. It's true that we never saw him running, but we thought that he was simply a goat that doesn't run. In fact it might have indicated irregular heart function. We also never saw him doing the 'second chewing' (chewing cud - ruminants put once eaten food from their stomach back to mouth where they chew it over, then finally digest), but we didn't pay much attention to it either. 'Maybe he's second chewing when we're not watching,' we thought naively. It was probably a sign of a serious digestive problem.

We didn't pay attention to these signs because overall Minto-kun seemed to be doing great - he was eating well, his eyes sparked when he saw his favorite treat, he would walk far away in pursuit of his favorite grass, he was lively and curious like a healthy goat should be.
In the hindsight I can see that Minto-kun's health was more fragile than we had realized. It was based on many improperly working internal systems that could fail at the slightest disturbance.

Our hypothesis - which cannot be confirmed - is that Minto-kun might have caught some minor virus or bacteria, probably from Akio-kun, that would have been harmless to a healthy goat (none of the other three goats on the farm fell ill), but it was fatal to Minto-kun, and Akio-kun.
※Addition: Akio-kun's and Minto-kun's illness could have been lumbar paralysis (also called cerebrospinal nematodiasis. In Japanese youmahi 腰麻痺). It's impossible to confirm, but the time of occurence (October) and clinical symptoms (physical weakness, motor dysfunction, inability to stand and eventual muscle paralysis) fit Minto-kun's and Akio-kun's case. It's a disease caused by parasitic roundworm Setaria digitata which is transmitted by mosquitoes. It doesn't cause problems in all goats that get it. The disease occurs only in the Far East countries (Japan, Korean Peninsula), so there is little information in English, but comparatively more in Japanese. The best description in Japanese is this (a bit old) article by Ayako Shiroto (National Livestock Breeding Center), published on the website of Japan Livestock Technology Association.

We couldn't find a veterinarian that would be expert on goats. So Minto-kun and Akio-kun were treated by a very good, animal-loving veterinarian who, however, doesn't know as much about goats as she knows about cats and dogs. We still appreciate what she did for the two.

Here's the last happy memory of Minto-kun and Akio-kun.

I hope they enjoyed the time with us as much as we enjoyed the time with them. I hope they knew how much we appreciated their unconditional trust, and that we took their trust seriously and did our best to protect them. We did our best, but it wasn't enough.