boopsqueak
Chirping
- Jan 16, 2024
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- 121
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Hello,
Our Speckled Sussex, Winifred (roughly a year and a half old) has been acting rather strangely lately. We're not sure how long this has been going on for (maybe since August?), but she has taken to sitting in the nesting box, turning around, and acting as if she is going to lay an egg, and then not producing anything.
I'm pretty sure that she started doing this fairly frequently after we had two bobcat attacks (the first in late July, the second in early August. Fortunately, no birds were killed. Winifred was not attacked, but she was still pretty stressed by the event.) There have also been many hawks about lately, very brazen ones that circle menacingly over our birds and stare at them from the treetops.
Has anyone here had any experience with behavior like this? I'm not sure when Winnie laid her last egg (I'm not the one who collects the eggs, she might still be laying occasionally). She doesn't seem to be molting or going broody, her appetite is great, and she still holds her own in the pecking order (as the Cruel Countess). Could this odd behavior be caused by stress, or does it seem likely that there is an infection of some sort going on here?
One thing we have noticed about Winifred is that her face, comb, and wattles have always been rather pale compared to those of the other chickens, though they are much rosier than in the past. She is also thinner than our other Sussex, though she is taller and quite heavy. Her eggs, when she does lay, have a distinctive shape to them, I'm not really sure how to describe it. During her first year, she laid rubber eggs from the roost at night twice (and ate one of them). She also had sour crop twice in the past, and we are treating her for a third time now (from what I've read on here, Sussexes seem to be prone to have crop problems). Her output is watery, but that seems to go with sour crop, and it isn't bright green or yellow, as is often the case with reproductive infections.
Here she is, being bribed. She looks paler in this picture than she does now.
Thank you in advance for any advice!
Our Speckled Sussex, Winifred (roughly a year and a half old) has been acting rather strangely lately. We're not sure how long this has been going on for (maybe since August?), but she has taken to sitting in the nesting box, turning around, and acting as if she is going to lay an egg, and then not producing anything.
I'm pretty sure that she started doing this fairly frequently after we had two bobcat attacks (the first in late July, the second in early August. Fortunately, no birds were killed. Winifred was not attacked, but she was still pretty stressed by the event.) There have also been many hawks about lately, very brazen ones that circle menacingly over our birds and stare at them from the treetops.
Has anyone here had any experience with behavior like this? I'm not sure when Winnie laid her last egg (I'm not the one who collects the eggs, she might still be laying occasionally). She doesn't seem to be molting or going broody, her appetite is great, and she still holds her own in the pecking order (as the Cruel Countess). Could this odd behavior be caused by stress, or does it seem likely that there is an infection of some sort going on here?
One thing we have noticed about Winifred is that her face, comb, and wattles have always been rather pale compared to those of the other chickens, though they are much rosier than in the past. She is also thinner than our other Sussex, though she is taller and quite heavy. Her eggs, when she does lay, have a distinctive shape to them, I'm not really sure how to describe it. During her first year, she laid rubber eggs from the roost at night twice (and ate one of them). She also had sour crop twice in the past, and we are treating her for a third time now (from what I've read on here, Sussexes seem to be prone to have crop problems). Her output is watery, but that seems to go with sour crop, and it isn't bright green or yellow, as is often the case with reproductive infections.
Here she is, being bribed. She looks paler in this picture than she does now.
Thank you in advance for any advice!
