what's up with the sneezing?

[gigelus2k13]

My 8 mo BL Wyandotte discovered that she can fly, so I cornered her today and snipped off the end feathers on one of her wings. I did not hold her long and she definitely did not understand what happened to her.

To comfort her (and the other hens who saw the incident), I kneeled and offered scratch from my hand. The BLW came in first (as she always does) and showed me that she holds no hard feelings and began to eat. Doing so, she periodically stopped to sneeze, then resuming the eating. Is the sneezing a way for a chicken to let off the stress?

One interesting thing I saw was that, when I grabbed the BLW, close to her was an older Buff Orp (she's at the top of the pecking order). That Orp, usually very gentle, suddenly fanned out and jumped at me, as if trying to protect the BLW.

I had no idea that my chicken care for each other!

 

[A Chicken Owner]

Well that's the responsibility of that chicken; to defend the flock and it sounds like she really cares for her fellow hens. To the extent of my knowledge, hens sneeze either when they get food stuck in their necks or when they have a respiratory infection.

 

[gigelus2k13]

Regarding the sneezing, my BLW is very healthy. She stopped sneezing after a while, so it must have been something else.

 

[A Chicken Owner]

This is what my pullets sometimes do. They sneeze because some parts of the pullet grower are rather powery and fine and it sometimes gets stuck in their necks.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Chickens do sneeze without being sick. They bathe in the dirt, sneezing occasionally does come with the territory. My chickens will sometimes make a great attempt at gobbling food up before anyone else can get to it. They "choke" and sneeze it up. Maybe they shouldn't be such greedy butts

I don't worry about sneezing unless its accompanied by something out of the ordinary like gurgling, mucous, runny eyes, ect. Good luck