hen 'crying'...please help!

[blueheaven]

my easter egger, who is the most independent hen of them all is crying. it is not her normal cluck. it sounds like she is crying. first i thought, she may just want out of the coop/run. so i let them out and she still did it. she would eat her treats and then go back to crying.

any thoughts???

 

[Mahonri]

When my EEs made that sound, they were laying an egg. Leave her be for an hour or so.

 

[Wickedbass]

depressed? maybe some prozac...

im sure she will be fine.

 

[blueheaven]

she has already laid today...

 

[geebs]

Look around and see if she has a hurt or injured friend... She is trying to tell you something... my hens do that when one of them is in trouble... I always come running... I lost one last week because I was slow...

 

[blueheaven]

well...she never follows me anywhere and my others do. however, today...she was following me!!!
thanks for the heads up!

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

Thanksgiving 2009, we went to a family member's home for dinner. It turned freezing just after dark and hit into the 20s before I got home, but I didn't worry too much because my chooks were used to going in by themselves and I figured I'd just close up their home when I got home.


When I got home, my only Rhode Island Red, Einstein, was on the roost in the henhouse, crying her heart out. It was NOT a "I'm cold" type of cry. It was a heartbreak type of cry.


So I looked more carefully in the darkness before closing the henhouse, and when I did a headcount, I came up one head short.


Turns out, the missing hen was Buffy, Einstein's best friend and partner in "crime" from the time they arrived at my home when they were two days old. Buffy always slept on the roost, right along side Einstein. They slept close enough that their feathers would touch at night. But this night, Buffy was not along side her friend Einstein.


So my wife and I went searching for Buffy, and found her in a little crawl space behind the garden shed. This little area did not receive any street light, and apparantly Buffy was behind the garden shed when the sun went down. Because there was no street light to help her find her way back to the henhouse, she just shut down right there and went to sleep.


She was extremely cold when we found her, with ice having formed on top of her little feathered body. But my wife tucked her into her jacket, between her bosom, and Buffy warmed up. We brought Buffy inside the house, and gave her some warm milk before we returned her to the henhouse and her best friend, Einstein.


Einstein's crying saved Buffy's life.

 

[pat1297]

WOW, what a story. I need to pay more attention to my girls.....I dont think of them with a heart and soul like that.

 

[flowergirl60]

What a great story. I'm glad they are back together.

 

[flowergirl60]

blueheaven, how is your hen?