Question: Depressed Chicken?

DownDoug

Hatching
7 Years
Apr 5, 2012
2
0
7
California Dreaming
Hi Friends,

Been reading on here for months. Thanks for all your amazing knowledge! Your assistance has been very helpful in my pursuit of raising backyard chickens.

Here's my question: I have three hens. Two buffs and 1 blue cochin. They've been laying since February. The blue cochin, Snoopy, stopped roosting about two weeks ago. I feared she was sick, as she stopped laying eggs, and hides in her nesting box all day. I bring her out to eat and drink (they are free range in my yard) and then she goes right back into her box. I bathed her in hot water for a half hour on two consecutive days fearing (as I'd read in other posts) that she had an egg stuck up in her thingie-thingie.

To be honest she seems perfectly healthy, and I fear she's become odd girl out - and has, yes, I'm about to say it - "the depression".

She really is fine when I make her stay out of the coop. She eats, she scours for bugs, she follows the other girls, but the second I open the coop she runs back inside. The other two don't really peck at her but she just seems, well, sad.

Am I crazy person? Am I anthropomorphizing my beloved Snoopy? Any suggestions? Thank you.
 
Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan
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Sounds like she has gone broody
 
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from Ohio!

I agree it sounds like she has gone broody.

Nope, they don't lay while they brood.

If you don't want her to brood, or you don't have fertile eggs, search the BYC site for ways to break a broody hen.

We tried removing hens from the nesting boxes when they went broody in early Feb. It was too cold for chicks. We ended up putting them in a separate mating pen. That broke them in 24 hours.
 

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