Turkey seems to be losing her mind trying to find a nest spot

[Pearlescent]

My nearly two year old Turkey hen has been pacing the exact same circle for the last hour. She’s panting and seems very distressed.

She doesn’t have free access to her favorite nesting box right now, because my other hen has two week old poults, that need the whole coop to themselves. The two year old laid an egg out in a different nesting spot a few days ago, so I didn’t think she’d have any issues. Today She clearly needed to lay, so I let her into the coop while mama and babies are free ranging, expecting her to just go to her box and lay an egg, as usual. Instead she’s been pacing the same circle for the last 80 minutes, I’ve been leaving her alone, but in the last few minutes I tried to pick her up in hopes of breaking the cycle, she flapped her wings in my face and absolutely flipped out. She’s very friendly and human imprinted so this is very out of character for her. If I didn’t need to put the other hen and her poults into the coop I’d just let her continue doing this all day. She stops very briefly to sit down in the box, before continuing the circle. I’m just a bit worried about her, because she seems out of her mind, and I don’t know why she’s doing this.

The pictures are of the circle she keeps doing, I’ve tried adding bedding to the box, I’ve tried removing it, nothing helps. She didn’t lay yesterday if that has any importance.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

That's pretty typical behavior when a turkey hen wants to lay somewhere she can't get too. Sometimes they pace until they just lay the egg. Drives me bananas. Mine want to lay outside the pen. I want them to lay inside. It's a daily thing here. I just ignore them.

 

[Pearlescent]

That's pretty typical behavior when a turkey hen wants to lay somewhere she can't get too. Sometimes they pace until they just lay the egg. Drives me bananas. Mine want to lay outside the pen. I want them to lay inside. It's a daily thing here. I just ignore them.

But she does have access to where she wants to Lay, that’s the issue. She gets into the box, then leaves again. And I can’t just let her keep doing it because it’s raining and the babies and their mama need to be put back in. This hen isn’t compatible with the poults, last time she was near them she picked one up by its wing and threw it. She settles down into the box, kicks all the bedding out, which then makes the box slippery, and then slides around, and leaves, just to go do it again. She has done this before, just not for 2 hours, which is what it’s been now. This is her favorite nesting box, and she has never done this for more than a few minutes before.

 

[Pearlescent]

Additionally, she’s been very odd so far this spring. She gave me 2 tiny mini eggs as her first this year, and recently the spots have been barely pigmented. She also laid a misshapen long one a few days ago, and she’s been acting strange. She was also broody for a week, then gave up, which was strange because she hatched poults last year with no issue.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I'm just saying sometimes you can't please them. They get an idea in their head and that's it. I personally wouldn't worry about it. I see it almost daily here during the breeding season. It won't hurt her to pace and complain unless she's rubbing on the fencing. Definitely keep her away from the poults.

 

[Pearlescent]

I'm just saying sometimes you can't please them. They get an idea in their head and that's it. I personally wouldn't worry about it. I see it almost daily here during the breeding season. It won't hurt her to pace and complain unless she's rubbing on the fencing. Definitely keep her away from the poults.

I know I can’t always help, it honestly just stresses me out seeing her pace like that. I have locked her out now, and she is pacing against the wire door, but I’m sure she’ll get over it. I’ve just never seen her quite this bad, usually when she does something like this it clears up fast, this time just freaked me out because she was doing this for literally 2 hours straight with no break.

I do my best to keep her away from the poults, but their mom follows me, and sometimes it’s unavoidable that one of the 8 poults gets too close. Luckily she avoids them for the most part, and issues only happen if they approach her. Now that there’s poults, I freerange the mama and Sugar (the troublesome one.) in separate sections of my yard, the poults are just small enough to get past most of the fences right now.

Thanks for the help

Sugars just a difficult bird overall, and I love her so much I hate to see her unhappy.