red headed ladies are molting

The red headed ladies are molting and I am only getting a couple of eggs a day. Molting is the process that all chickens go thro' every fall where they shed their old feathers and grow new. I think these sexling hens are about the hardest molting chickens I have ever known.

The one hen in the photo has lost a few feathers right behind her tail but the other hen with the white feathers showing is in full molt. I suspect but have not been able to get any information about this that the molt being heavy is tied to how many eggs the hen lay in a year in other words the heavier the molt the better layer the hen is.

I base this on my experince with the bantam chickens they didn't lay as well as the red headed ladies and their molt was not as heavy. I also think the heavy molt is connected to the fact that the red headed ladies don't set or go thro' a brooding process. The heavy egg producing chicken has had the brooding trait breed out and therefore lay more eggs but I think the molt and brooding is connected I mean if a hen is prone to be broody she will not have a heavy molt.

I see photos on the net of chickens that are kept in pens for commercial egg laying and they are nearly naked when they molt some think this is because of their living conditions but I suspect that it is because they are breed for heavy production.

Some people believe that the commerical houses starve the hens to make them all molt at the same time but my hens have all the feed and water that will take and they have molted all at the same time.