hens shaking their heads

[freerange freaks]

i checked them all over for bugs but they look clean. They are just going about their normal business and will occasionally shake their heads. It is really cold here and they are not the right breed for our climate. They have all had a touch of frost nip on their combs and their combs seem a little larger than normal.
I don't know why they are shaking their heads. Any suggestions?

 

[dlhunicorn]

What breed? How old? Have they been ill recently?
What feed (and are you giving a vitamins/nutritional supplement?)

 

[freerange freaks]

9 of them are red sex links and the other one is a mix of unknow (to me) variety. 7 of them are 1 year the rest are three years old.
Not sick at all except that we just came through a cold snap. The oldest bird was in the house for a week during the wicked temperatures. Um, they seem to have a funny, stinky poop odour...I'm pretty sure it's just because there is an abundance of thawed droppings. I did turn their bedding over and added seven new bags of shavings to help dry things out.
They are eating Purina layer pellets but the last bag I purchased looked somewhat different. I noticed this difference but the lady at the feed store said that they were all the same. They did get scratch a lot during the cold weather and no the don't recieve any. No supplements or vitamins.
Thank you for helping.

 

[dlhunicorn]

Get a good supplement (formulated for poultry) and give that to them ... add a scrambled egg or two to their feed on occasion and offer (free-choice daily) a live culture yogurt (do a search on yogurt ...their is a whole thread on how to make your own using a commercial yogurt as a starter).
When it is cold your birds directs all their resources towards staying warm and not to fighting off pathogens... I am not really a supporter of "deep litter" methods as birds will scratch around ... grains gets dropped (and develop mycotoxins) bacteria can thrive unless you have just the right blance in your system to deal with it at a certain point if you do not the litter bed can explode into a bed of pathogens when you do not have the right balance in your system.
If you are seeing your birds listless and displaying first signs of possible illness and you have such a litter system then I suggest you clean the entire lot out, disinfect and lay new bedding.