What is my hen doing?

[ButterflyEggs]

My sweet girl, Goldie, is a Rhode Island Red/Production Red hybrid. She has been behaving oddly for the past hour with very strange distressed sounds and the behavior in the video link below. It started at 1pm and she finally left the chicken house at 2pm. She laid her first egg yesterday. Any information is helpful.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Looks like normal new layer behavior to me.

 

[ButterflyEggs]

Looks like normal new layer behavior to me.

She didn't lay anything though. Shes my first girl to start laying so I'm very confused as to what she is doing.

 

[Trish1974]

I agree with 21hens. Just normal new layer behavior.

 

[ButterflyEggs]

I agree with 21hens. Just normal new layer behavior.

Wonderful. She went back in and is trying again. I moved one of the ceramic eggs onto the ground so maybe she will clutch it and have an easier time. It's very distressing to hear these noises like she is struggling.

 

[PirateGirl]

Chickens make all kinds of noise when laying is involved, sometimes it's even when another hen is laying, don't worry too much!

As far as the ceramic egg goes, I would put it wherever you want her to lay (in a perfect world). If you want her to learn to lay on the ground, that's fine, but if not, I'd put it in the nest box or whatever you have setup for her.

 

[redranger209]

It looks like normal paying behavior, but to me she looks overheated on top of that. The way her mouth is open and her wings spread wide. I live in California, so my birds do that all day for three months straight.

 

[PirateGirl]

She didn't lay anything though. Shes my first girl to start laying so I'm very confused as to what she is doing.

Some girls are quick about their laying, in and out of the nest box in a flash, others pace and sing and go in and out of the coop throughout the day before finally laying

 

[ButterflyEggs]

Chickens make all kinds of noise when laying is involved, sometimes it's even when another hen is laying, don't worry too much!

As far as the ceramic egg goes, I would put it wherever you want her to lay (in a perfect world). If you want her to learn to lay on the ground, that's fine, but if not, I'd put it in the nest box or whatever you have setup for her.

I had the ceramics in the boxes originally. She was pecking at them but that's all

 

[ButterflyEggs]

It looks like normal paying behavior, but to me she looks overheated on top of that. The way her mouth is open and her wings spread wide. I live in California, so my birds do that all day for three months straight.

Its 90 degrees out. She left at 2 for water then went back in. I try to keep all my birds hydrated and happy and cool. I will likely take the fan back outside for her if shes going to be in the house during the day. The radiant shielding only cools so much.