Hi all,
I was sitting at my dining room table watching our hens walking around outside when I caught a glimpse of the weirdest thing I have ever seen any of them do: One of our hens, we call her Smarty, began walking all twisted up (neck bent in one direction with her head bent in the other)- kind of squatting while walking, and then she rested on the ground and began to "grind" (for the lack of a better word) her breast into the grass. Now, the walking weird part could have been caused by the scarecrow that we have in our back yard to try to keep the hawks at bay. It is really windy and I notice that the scarecrow is kind of leaning to one side and bobbing a little in the wind. The hen did appear to be keeping an eye on it while she was walking around. But I don't think that explains why she would drop to the ground and procede to "grind" her breast into the grass.
Any ideas about this? My husband said that maybe she had something irritating her crop, and she was tryihg to work it around by rubbing it in the grass. I thought I would ask here to glean some information from more experienced people than ourselves.
Thanks in advance for your help!
I was sitting at my dining room table watching our hens walking around outside when I caught a glimpse of the weirdest thing I have ever seen any of them do: One of our hens, we call her Smarty, began walking all twisted up (neck bent in one direction with her head bent in the other)- kind of squatting while walking, and then she rested on the ground and began to "grind" (for the lack of a better word) her breast into the grass. Now, the walking weird part could have been caused by the scarecrow that we have in our back yard to try to keep the hawks at bay. It is really windy and I notice that the scarecrow is kind of leaning to one side and bobbing a little in the wind. The hen did appear to be keeping an eye on it while she was walking around. But I don't think that explains why she would drop to the ground and procede to "grind" her breast into the grass.
Any ideas about this? My husband said that maybe she had something irritating her crop, and she was tryihg to work it around by rubbing it in the grass. I thought I would ask here to glean some information from more experienced people than ourselves.
Thanks in advance for your help!