hen strutting like a tom?????

[patandchickens]

I like turkeys, but they sure do puzzle me a lot

I have these three Beltsville Small White hens. I *know* they are all hens because maybe half the days I get three eggs per day out of that pen (it is just them in there, since the tom was removed to freezerville a few weeks ago).

This evening, one of them did an excellent strutting performance for me. No "whump whump whump" noise and obviously she is a bit disadvantaged in tailfeather length, but otherwise it was the whole nine yards, puffed up like a basketball, low-rider stance, tail spread straight up, extra-red in the face, puffing back and forth at me.

What is that about.

I intend to put one of these hens in the freezer whenever I get around to it and *had* been planning on doing the one that is rather notably scrawny, but now I am concerned that if this one is going funny, I do not want to be left with only *one* white hen that is an actual card-carrying egg-laying female.

Do hens just do that sometime while being reproductively normal, or what?

Thanks,

Pat

 

[MissTurkey4]

In babies both sex strut. As they get older the hens do not do it as often but you will see it now and then.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

deleted

 

[Dogfish]

Quote:
Yup. Saw it after I reintroduced my injured hen back into the flock.

 

[Jmiller429]

yes. and i swear on my mothers life, My neighbor has a hen, whom laid eggs and hatched chicks, who gobbles.

 

[patandchickens]

I should maybe have mentioned, these hens are exactly 1 year old (like, exactly to the day, yesterday

)

So maybe it is b/c of change in pecking order since the tom was removed a couple weeks ago? It sounds like you're telling me it's fairly normal and not cause for culling. So I guess I will go ahead with original plan of removing the scrawnier one.

Will be putting my Ridley bronze pair in with the white hens "real soon now" (probably at the same time as abovementioned scrawny hen removal) so it will be interesting to see what happens then.

Thanks y'all, turkeys still mystify me but I *am* gradually learning thanks to this forum

,

Pat