Bantam D’uccle acting weird.

[FamilyOfSeven]

Hello we have a 1 year old bantam d’uccle who lives with ten bigger chickens. She goes broody every day and seldom comes out of the nesting box.
Lately she has been acting strange, and makes repeating low bawking sounds.
She also has a hard crop, is very fistey, and once in a while will flap her wings and squak loudly.
Our other chickens are very mean to her and peck her and don’t let her come near them.
We let our chickens out 7 hours a day. When they free range she does not come with them.
Could this be cocidiosis, gapeworm (which we treated her for a month ago because she was gaping), impacted crop, or worse? Thanks in advance!

 

[FamilyOfSeven]

This is her a few months ago, also could she just be super broody?

 

[FamilyOfSeven]

Thanks again for any help!

 

[FamilyOfSeven]

@azygous @Wyorp Rock

 

[Eggcessive]

D’uccles as other bantams, may go broody a couple of times a month. Break her in a wire dog crate with food and water, and place a roost in there if possible. But do try to get her eating some cooked egg, mushy wet chicken feed made fresh daily, and check her crop each morning when it should be empty. Some vitamins and electrolytes for a couple of days would do her well. What do her poops look like? She may be afraid of the other larger chickens, and that can be normal. Are there other bantams that she can spend time with that don’t pick on her? Broodies can become very weak and malnourished if allowed to be broody all of the time. I have had to break some silkies over and over who were broody much of the time.

 

[azygous]

Serial broodies can be a blessing or a curse. I had one once, and I could predict the exact day she would go broody, her cycle was so predictable. It made it easy to start saving eggs for her to incubate because I knew when she would begin to sit the nest.

The sound your hen is making is the typical broody vocal. It does seem to annoy the other chickens, but a broody usually knows how to put the in their place.

Your hen isn't sick. She's just broody. It really would be a good idea to have a broody cage handy and break her so she isn't broody so often.

 

[FamilyOfSeven]

Awesome! Thank you both. We will put her in a cage and isolate her for a little while. Do you think she could go in a chicken tractor with 6 other 2month old chickens?
They are at two months and the same size of her, with easy access to food and water.

 

[Eggcessive]

Be cautious so that she doesn’t peck the younger birds.

 

[azygous]

The criteria for effective broody breaking is that the broody be deprived of anything she can use as a nest. Even solid dirt and grass can provide a reflective surface that prevents her from shedding her broody body heat which in turn perpetuates her broody hormones. For this reason, an effective broody cage will have no solid floor in it. The cage is usually open mesh to allow cool air to circulate under the broody. In this way, it takes very little time to interrupt the hormones.

 

[FamilyOfSeven]

The criteria for effective broody breaking is that the broody be deprived of anything she can use as a nest. Even solid dirt and grass can provide a reflective surface that prevents her from shedding her broody body heat which in turn perpetuates her broody hormones. For this reason, an effective broody cage will have no solid floor in it. The cage is usually open mesh to allow cool air to circulate under the broody. In this way, it takes very little time to interrupt the hormones.

The chicken tractor (with the two month old chicks) has a small wire nesting box with plenty of air to flow through.