Ohmygosh yes, it's worse when they're molting. But they're always skittish. They're not aggressive and she didn't do it to attack me or anything but it was disorienting to suddenly be covered with stuff and unable to see. I just let her go and she seemed fine.
Ugh. I got nothing but ugh.Why are our black Australorps so skittish? We handle them every day just like all of our flock. We're so gentle yet they react like we're trying to kill them. If I were walking past on the street and heard them screeching like that I'd think someone was doing something really awful to their chickens.
Yesterday I tried to pick up our big Australorp just for a second and she screeched and slipped her large wings out of my hands and beat them so hard against the ground she kicked up a huge wave of dirt and dried poop all over me. It got in my hair and my eyes. I couldn't see! It was awful. I had to go inside and change my clothes and take a shower to get it all off of me. What in the heck?
Update: she is doing much better after just a few days. She looks confident and happy. I know it's too soon for her feathers to recover but I swear they look better.
She's a sweet, friendly hen and I had never heard her be loud like that. Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck rrrrrrrawwwwwWWWK! Cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck rrrrrrrawwwwwWWWK!
That's not an annoyance but I wanted to follow up with a little good news.
Dogs are always eating chicken feed, and cat foodNot my flock...but the puppy who is training for guarding the chickens/property...promptly ate the chicken feed I leave for a free range rooster we have...clearly the chicken feed is as tasty as the dog feed or more
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Update: she is doing much better after just a few days. She looks confident and happy. I know it's too soon for her feathers to recover but I swear they look better.
She and her four pen-mates were out of the pen for a while and she was the first one I put back. I moved one of the other four back into the pen so three were yet to come home and it was starting to get dusky.
Suddenly she started cluck-cluck-clucking very loud. It didn't sound like an egg/escort song so I stopped and looked to see what she was doing. She went rrrrrrrawwwwwWWWK! super loud.
I realized she was calling the remaining three hens home to roost for the night. "Where are you guys? Are you lost? We're all over here! It's going to get dark soon. Tsk, tsk. Come home!" She felt connected enough to the other four to call them home at dusk.
Annoyance: I got some good scratches on my arm carrying one of the EEs today. She sometimes kicks unless I hold her against my chest, I guess she feels safe there, and I didn't move her there quickly enough so I got kicked and my arm is all scratched, it looks like I own an angry cat or something (I don't own a cat). She lays beautiful large green eggs, though, so she's forgiven!
Back in her own pen she went.
The heat is coming back soon and I cannot manage five different pens in the heat. Just one pen is hard enough. I'll have to come up with some other solution. The only hens who get along well with each other are the flock of four and they don't lay anymore. 
