I was watching a chicken today. She is a blue maran and she shares a coop/pen with FBCM's. Today she was at the fence what a concrete block was sitting. Behind it were pine needles that had fallen. She was picking them up and putting them on her back. I've never seen a hen doing anything like that before. Anyone have a clue to why she was doing this? She isn't broody. The stuff would fall off her back and she would just keep finding more and putting it on her back. It never stayed in place. Curious to know if anyone else has ever seen this and if so what was the reason.
She was building herself a nest! They put their nest materials on their back so it falls around them and makes a "bowl" around them.
Someone was posting on this site a few days ago about her hen sticking bits of hay under her wings and all over her body. Pretty cute.
I love it when they do that! Everytime I put new shavings in the nesting boxes...I get hens covered in it! I love watching them do it-then leave me presents!!!!
She was not making a nest that I can tell but then again I really didn't look. I will have to check the coop to see if she brought anything in there. I don't think she had much luck because it kept falling off her back..... lol. She doesn't seem broody either and has plenty of hay in the nest box. Birds can be so goofy sometimes. It was neat watching her though.
I have a few hens who do this after they have laid their eggs. Most do it whilst in the nest, some do it afterwards, after they have left the nest. The ones I see do it outside of the nest are those that have never gone broody. They lay their eggs and walk away, but some of the nesting instinct remains. I anthropomorphize the behavior as "I'm so special, I just laid an egg, I'm gonna dress up." The pens doing it in the nest box are hiding themselves (instinctively protecting the clutch of eggs, even if that clutch consists of a single egg) and building a better nest, with the shavings or leaves or whatever building up around their bosses, as mentioned previously.
