HELP! CHICKEN MAKING BAD SOUNDS!!!!!!!!! WHAT DO I DO

[Swbertrand1]

16 weeks of age is still pretty young (inexperience, size, etc) for a pullet to be in close quarters with full-size adult hens. We don't usually fully integrate young birds with adults until they've reached about 6 months in age, but that's just us and it's worked well.

She may have been injured, unless you saw it all and can be sure that it was just pecking order messages. I'd look very closely at her head and neck area for injuries to be sure. If it was on the neck and there were injuries, the massages are likely going to cause more pain for her than any help they might give.

She may be in mild shock too if this was unexpected and violent from the pullet's perspective. A quiet place to rest for a day or two with food and water might be the way to go... Good luck with her!

 

[Grace8269]

16 weeks of age is still pretty young (inexperience, size, etc) for a pullet to be in close quarters with full-size adult hens. We don't usually fully integrate young birds with adults until they've reached about 6 months in age, but that's just us and it's worked well.

She may have been injured, unless you saw it all and can be sure that it was just pecking order messages. I'd look very closely at her head and neck area for injuries to be sure. If it was on the neck and there were injuries, the massages are likely going to cause more pain for her than any help they might give.

She may be in mild shock too if this was unexpected and violent from the pullet's perspective. A quiet place to rest for a day or two with food and water might be the way to go... Good luck with her!

She was only integrated with the older hen for about 30 minutes and I saw most of it. She just kept running away if she got pecked but eventually wound up in the nesting box which she had been doing this morning when she wasn’t with the older hen. I checked for injuries and there were none. I brought her to my garage which is air conditioned and gave her water and food for about an hour. She was acting normal like pecking around but she still kept making that noise. Do you think that she could just be laying her first egg? I posted about her on another forum about my concerns about her being a rooster. Everyone said she was a hen that was just approaching POL and that I should expect eggs soon. Also she is in between 4&5 months if that matters. Anyway, THANK U SO MUCH!! I really appreciate it!!!!!!

 

[Swbertrand1]

She was only integrated with the older hen for about 30 minutes and I saw most of it. She just kept running away if she got pecked but eventually wound up in the nesting box which she had been doing this morning when she wasn’t with the older hen. I checked for injuries and there were none. I brought her to my garage which is air conditioned and gave her water and food for about an hour. She was acting normal like pecking around but she still kept making that noise. Do you think that she could just be laying her first egg? I posted about her on another forum about my concerns about her being a rooster. Everyone said she was a hen that was just approaching POL and that I should expect eggs soon. Also she is in between 4&5 months if that matters. Anyway, THANK U SO MUCH!! I really appreciate it!!!!!!

It's certainly possible that she was/is trying to lay an egg, but chickens have a weird way of stopping that process when threatened or scared. A few times, we've seen different hens actually leave the nest box while trying to lay if they get bullied or bothered by a "higher-up" in the pecking order. The odd thing is they might wait hours, or even until the next day sometimes, to come back to the nest box and finish laying.

At 4-5 months of age, she's just at the beginning of laying an egg, so that's a toss-up for me. I'd be more inclined to think that she's in mild shock (or fear), and putting her someplace where she's safe and can recoup a bit is the best thing you can do for her, which you've done. If she feels safe in the garage AND she IS about to lay, she will lay her egg there...

 

[Grace8269]

Thank u!!!