neurotic aracana

[nancee]

I have 1 aracana hen. She lays a green egg every day. Most days she acts neurotic like she wants to escape from their outdoor area. I don't know what to do with her anymore. Many days she acts frantic to get away from the other hens. They have been pecking her wings, and don't seem to like her. Is this just the breed? She acts like a free spirit. Help!!!

 

[chooks4life]

Hello and

She could be acting that way for a few reasons.

• The bullying. Particularly if the other hens are showing her signs it's going to escalate and she's going to be seriously hurt if she doesn't get out of their territory, immediately. Constant bullying that doesn't cease or tone down often escalates. If an alpha hen is telling her to get out of her territory, and the subordinate can't comply because she's in a cage with the alpha, the alpha may be taking it as repeated refusal to obey, disrespect, a challenge even, and that can be fatal for the subordinate once the alpha loses patience. Escalating stress makes everything worse.
• The size of the enclosure. It may be luxuriously large for all I know, but some chickens want to range for acres rather than square feet, and even a large enclosure will not satisfy them. Some definitely need to wander and explore.
• Her history --- i.e. if she was used to free-ranging before you got her, or came from parents who were free-range and more instinctive than birds used to staring at four walls and a thousand other chickens all day every day for life.
• Unhealthy location. The soil may be reaching seriously high levels of toxins, pathogens, parasites, bacteria, fungi, whatever, and she can smell it and knows she's going to become very sick and possibly die if she doesn't get away from it. (The other hens may not react due to lack of instincts, as we've bred instincts to be weaker or stronger in different breeds, as an example brooding/maternal instincts being bred out of some). Hydrated agricultural lime all over the coop floor will help this, as well as in the yard, everywhere they walk basically. It won't hurt them but will hurt the pathogens and parasite eggs in the soil as well as harmful bacteria and fungi levels.
• Her hormones: she may be close to going broody and her instincts are telling her to find an unpopulated place to nest. This won't be helped by the bullying, but the bullying itself may be due to the other hens not being instinctive and reacting to her pre-broody behavior as abnormal. Many hens show some sort of pre-broody behavior while trying to build a clutch.
• If there are no nest eggs left 24/7, this can distress them. If the nest is completely emptied as a rule or even too regularly, then in her mind the clutch is being destroyed and the nesting site is unsafe. This can really disturb some hens and compel them to go lay in hidden places. Fake plaster-of-paris 'nest eggs' are quite helpful and will assist with egg-eating rats or chooks as well.
• She sees fresh greenery outside the cage and has enough instinct or experience to know she needs it for full health.
• She wants a rooster. Some hens will abandon you if you don't have any males around, particularly if they can hear them elsewhere; no matter how faint and faraway the noise, they are social and family-oriented animals and driven to make new family units to remain in for life. Other hens are not considered to be her family, particularly if she has no close sisters among them; a rooster and the chicks she makes with him are her natural family unit. Instinctive hens aren't satisfied without a mate and reproduction. Non-instinctive hens don't care for either.
• She's possibly just neurotic. Nervine tonic foods will help with that. Some 'nervines' are oats (rolled, not 'quick'), honey, kelp or seaweed meal, calcium i.e. dolomite since it also needs to be in balance with magnesium to help, and basically any diet that is complete and balanced should help. Commercial laying diets claim they're 'complete' but often have only 12 or 20-odd nutrients whereas they actually need around 80 to be totally healthy and live long. The average commercial layer diet is formulated to keep hens hungry and from full health, because when those commercial layer hens reach a certain level of protein and fat accumulation they stop laying for a seasonal break, moult, or brood; while these are necessary functions for their full health, this is unwanted in hens designed to be culled around their second birthday, so the pellets formulated for them deliberately keep them desperate and aren't designed to keep them alive for long at all... Not that you'll see the makers touting those 'virtues' of their pellets or mashes, lol. These pellets cause many diseases of deficiency, or malnutrition. Different breeds and family lines have differing nutrient needs as well so what works for your other hens may not work for her.
• She's possibly just plain bored. Chickens aren't half as stupid as we've all been taught. She may benefit from coarse grain mix thrown down on the ground, not in a dish, with hay to scratch around in to hunt for food. They need stimulation just like all animals do. A boring life is no life. Being bored leads to stereotypies or repetitive meaningless behavior, like pacing all day every day as some zoo animals do. They need something to do. They need to see new things, have corners so they can wonder what's around them and go check; cages that allow this behavior are actually proven to remarkably increase quality of life in captive animals. They need their curiosity stimulated. Lack of stimulation can cause animals to become neurotic and become mentally stuck in a behavioral loop. If left there for too long they may never recover.

Those are some suggestions of potential reasons. There are actually more possible reasons but that's enough of a chunk to try to wade through, lol!

Best wishes to you and your flock.

 

[nancee]

Thanks so much. I will look into the nutrition side of it all, but she does act bored and keeps getting out in the food room next to their house to lay her eggs. Then she leaves them and runs back intothe yard with the rest of them.Thanks for your help.

 

[chooks4life]

Sounds like you've found the likely reason. Best wishes with her.