Broody hen acting strange

[Studio2770]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing! Unfortunately none of us have it and we do the best we can with the information and opportunity we have. Learning from the experience and moving forward is the only thing that we can do, so don't beat yourself up.

Chickens will do their utmost to look "fine" even when they are not. It is a defence mechanism. Weak/sickly chickens are usually run out of the flock, so they try to appear normal. I have seen sick chickens pretending to eat with the flock.... picking up grains when I scatter scratch, but when you watch closely, they drop them again without ingesting them.

If I was able to be around then I could've done more but that just wasn't the case unfortunately. It still baffles me how fast she went down. Granted I had a hen outright drop from something that's still a mystery to me. Powerless is what I'd say what I feel like.

They are delicate yet resilient at the same time. Too bad they don't realize that showing their illness clearly is in their best interest since we owners need to know. But that's part of their nature. Nothing we can do aside from close observation.