h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Don't Panic!

Several normal chicken actions can be quite alarming to a new chicken keeper.

Lying on one side, wing and leg on the upper side stretched out, eyes either fully or half closed. If the eyes aren't fully closed, the eyes are glazed.

No worries--the chicken is basking in the sun. (If there is no sun, and there aren't any other heat sources around to be basked in, then some concern could be merited.)

Lying on one side in a depression, with spasmatic movements of either/both legs, and possibly the head, as well.

Dustbathing. Much easier to tell when the bird is finished digging and shakes the dust either down to the skin or out of the feathers.

Running about with a small vertebrate held in the beak. Worse yet, tug-of-war with a small vertebrate.

Extra protein! Also, dino descendents...

Hen or pullet has been in the nest box* for multiple days, even sleeping there instead of roosting. Leaves once or twice a day for a
few minutes and eats as if starving. Enormous, odiferous droppings. A normally gentle bird may peck or bite if touched. Bird is puffed up and/or flattened out over the nest. Bird may make strange noises. Bird loses weight quickly.

The hen or pullet is broody. If one wants chicks, this is good news. If not, the longer the bird is broody, the harder she is to break.

Rooster or cockeral trembles, squats down, stands up, shakes his wings, and weaves his head side to side. Does not stop until either
pecked on top of the head, or hen or pullet squats with wings held half open.

Well, as the next step after the hen squats is that the rooster mounts her, this is a mating dance.

Chicken has several bald spots.

Chicken is having a hard moult. Chickens have a few juvenile moults, and then, after they turn 1 year old, moult every fall. Not every
chicken has a hard moult--sometimes the moult is only noticeable because there are suddenly feathers everywhere and all the birds in
the flock look a little thinner than usual. In a soft moult, feathers are replaces as they drop instead of all the feathers being lost at once.


*Or some odd place.

I don't usually stop til I get pecked on the head too!,

Deb