My lovely Australorp, Gertie has been acting strangely in the mornings for about a week.
When I open the coop and they come out, I give them (4 hens) about a cup of scratch mix on the ground.
Gertie is a real guts, and could eat underwater, but this last week after a couple of half-hearted pecks, she jerks her head backwards while taking a couple of steps backwards. She then goes back to the seed and then again does this strange backwards dance, jerking her head.
She is eating, pooing, drinking and behaving normally the rest of the time. She's deep into a moult and has just been treated for scaley leg mite with ivermectin (she was doing this before the treatment) so I just can't figure it out.
Have I described it well enough to create a mental picture? I seriously am confused by this behaviour. Any help would be appreciated.
When I open the coop and they come out, I give them (4 hens) about a cup of scratch mix on the ground.
Gertie is a real guts, and could eat underwater, but this last week after a couple of half-hearted pecks, she jerks her head backwards while taking a couple of steps backwards. She then goes back to the seed and then again does this strange backwards dance, jerking her head.
She is eating, pooing, drinking and behaving normally the rest of the time. She's deep into a moult and has just been treated for scaley leg mite with ivermectin (she was doing this before the treatment) so I just can't figure it out.
Have I described it well enough to create a mental picture? I seriously am confused by this behaviour. Any help would be appreciated.