Hi, I have had my girls for a year-well long enough to study their behavior. Today I am stumped. I have an easter egger that just keeps running the perimeter of the yard and cackling like she is in distress/worried. She seems to be going to various places in the yard trying to get under things. She has never done this before, nor have any of my other chickens. She is causing the rest of my flock to become an uproar. Occasionally the other chickens will "chase" her like they are coming to see what her problem is. A deeper explanation is this: she tries to go under the house in the crawl space, looks around, comes out and runs to some tall grass. She scratches there a minute, then runs to some nearby wood piled up. She then tries to go under it. She then comes back out runs into the tall grass again. She then goes into the coop scratches around, and comes out only to go back on her running trail. It seems to me that she is either having trouble laying her egg today, or she is worried that she has lost her nest. We collect eggs everyday, so I don't know why she would be looking for her "babies". She doesn't show any signs of an enlarged vent area as if there was an egg lodged in it. She lays a beautiful olive green egg everyday, so we have not yet had any problems there. She looks absolutely normal. She has pooped several times, and I have checked it for blood, worms, eggshell, etc. Its all fine. She has worked herself up so much she is starting to pant. She isn't eating or drinking, and I am afraid she may dehydrate. She has been at now for 3 hours. I want to help her, but I have no idea what to do.
