Anyone have experience with “Hen Hysteria”?

[RubyNala97]

Hen hysteria is an affliction that only affects commercial poultry but I am 99% sure my hen has it. She is around 7 months old, a black and white crested Polish hen. She’s in a run with 5 other girls and 1 rooster. All same breed. Allowed to free range for an hour or 2 each day. She is well cared for. A few days ago she just lost her mind. She started hiding in the corner of the run and over and over again, flying all over the run, trying to escape. She is constantly in a panic as if something is after her. Even when she is out free ranging, she’s just squawking and flying around as if someone is after her. As soon as I put her back in the run she is trying to escape and in a constant panic. I read to give her niacin. The only other thing I am reading online is a tranquilizer or sedative. That there is no cure. Has anyone else experienced this in your backyard flock? Any success with treatments?

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I've never heard of this before, but has she started laying yet? This is a bit extreme, but I've dealt with hens who had bad nesting box anxiety, one of which was my EE hen, Twyla. Twyla never went to the extreme of your hen, but there was definitely something wrong with her mentally that was passed down to her offspring. She was known to randomly fly up into things for no reason at all (on rare occasions), then her son had a thing for randomly flying into the wall like he could perch there, despite there being nothing there. Her daughter inherited her nesting box anxiety, though thankfully not as bad.
Twyla's nesting box anxiety consisted of her scratching out all the nesting material, going in and out of the nesting box and that sometimes included going in and out of the coop as well. Her anxiety was definitely worse some times than others, but I always had to keep cardboard (and would need to replace it) on the bottom of the nesting boxes for when she scratched everything else out.

Again, I know nothing of this and have never heard of it, but if this was my bird (and I saw reason to do something about it), I would put her in a completely dark space for a time and see if that helps at all, even if it's just to calm her down. I would recommend trimming back her crest so she can see better because that could be part of the issue. Check over her whole body to ensure there's nothing stuck on her such as a loose fishing line or something like that, and check for any injuries. Make sure she also has a safe place to lay her eggs, even if you need to put curtains in the nesting boxes.

I wouldn't give her any sedatives. First, I'm recommending that you rule out any possible issue whether it be lack of sight, tangled, or even injured or sick in another way. Again, try calming her in a dark space and see if she'll come out of it. Worst comes to worse, I'd almost recommend giving her a "calming" CBD product, but I don't know if that's safe for chickens or how much and how often to dose her, and even if you can find that information out, that's for last resort.

 

[nuthatched]

As a polish, she likely can't see past her head fluff. Trimming it may calm her down

 

[RubyNala97]

Thanks for the input so far. Just to update: I have isolated her, thoroughly checked her over, and gave her a hair cut. Her crest wasn’t covering too much of the eyes like some of the other girls but I cut it back nonetheless. The only physical thing I noticed was a small cut on her beak (which I’m not surprised with how she’s been flying into walls and hiding in corners). She’s eating and drinking a ton since being isolated. I put some nutridrench in her water and as of right now she’s calm. She got a little upset but calms when she hears my voice. I’ll see how it goes over the next couple days!