Super crazy behavior!

[trunkman]

I bought 26 egg laying day old chicks last October. All was well and every chick survived to this point but I have one production red chick that goes nuts every once in a while. I have a 40 ft. by 50 ft. open chicken run for them to scratch and run around in so they have plenty of space to do their thing. About a month ago I noticed one of the pullets run around wildly for about 30 seconds. This evening after I threw them their daily treat of scratch I witnessed this pullet started to run at full speed along the fence till she got to the end of the run and hit the run fencing at full stride, she got up and started to run along the other way at full stride till she hit the other side of the fencing and stumbled, she got up again and ran at full stride till she hit the other side at full speed again. She then got up and started scratching like nothing ever happened and acted normal. She runs like something is chasing her, it started to make me laugh until she was hitting the fence. What do you think is causing this????

 

[azygous]

What I would do is go post this on the forum for emergencies and diseases. I'm leaning in favor of there being some physiological cause for this, either an infection or a tumor in her brain.

The experts on that forum may have some idea or may have heard of this before.

The fact that she's hitting the fence is troublesome. That is not intentional.

 

[aart]

Does she do it all the time or just the once?

I've seen some weird behavior like that if they get spooked, and we don't always know/see/hear what spooked them.
If it only happened once, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[trunkman]

I've witnessed it about 5 times in the past month. I think she will hurt herself at some point if it keeps up, she runs into the fencing at full stride a few times before she stops and goes back to scratching like nothing ever happened.

 

[Sarevan]

I had a hen that was body slamming herself into the back wall of the coop, bouncing off then hitting a roost 3' away. She got 2 others to start doing this, they were trying to catch a thin bit of light coming in from 2 pieces of siding that left a small gap to let light in the coop. (1/8-3/8" gap!) I have since covered the gap, and she still does it once in awhile.

Also have a hen that runs the length of the run and runs into the wire at the end, I expect to find her cubed on the other side some day. I even wove reflectors, and rope pieces that move in the breeze to the end she runs into thinking she couldn't see the wire. It didn't work. Nothing is spooking her makes happy clucks then off she goes and boing, walks or runs back does it again. Nothing on the other side except where we back up our vehicles and wild bunch grass, sagebrush beyond that. Unless the call of a pheasant or a quail is driving her nuts I don't know what to think.

The one that body slammed herself did have a swelling on her from hitting the roost, it is almost gone now. The fence chicken no injuries or bruising just being a weirdo.