dinosaw
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Hello folks, a belated happy new year to you all 
I moved the flocks ranging area last week from the back of the run which is all under cover of a huge tree to out the front which is on open grass and unsheltered, partly due to the worm and mite problems I've had recently, partly to give the ground a rest. Since then one of the hens is behaving very oddly indeed, she seems to be constantly obsessed with some none existent aerial threat. She turns her head sideways, looks up, puts her head low to the ground, backside in the air, before shuffling backwards coming back up to full height. Having spent some time watching I would say that she does this on average once per minute. All of the other birds are absolutely fine, scratching away happily oblivious to it all, as they should be given there is nothing in the sky. She is a skyline and has always been an oddball, in fact within a week of getting her we had named her Thickbar in honour of her stupidity, when I changed the door that they come out of the run through the others got it straight away, four weeks later she would still be waiting outside the original door pacing up and down looking enviously at the others. However she was out in this area in the summer and wasn't showing this behaviour at all. Anyone got any ideas what's causing it? I had wondered from the amount of times she has flown headfirst into the mesh that maybe it could be brain damage. Do your chickens have OCD?
I moved the flocks ranging area last week from the back of the run which is all under cover of a huge tree to out the front which is on open grass and unsheltered, partly due to the worm and mite problems I've had recently, partly to give the ground a rest. Since then one of the hens is behaving very oddly indeed, she seems to be constantly obsessed with some none existent aerial threat. She turns her head sideways, looks up, puts her head low to the ground, backside in the air, before shuffling backwards coming back up to full height. Having spent some time watching I would say that she does this on average once per minute. All of the other birds are absolutely fine, scratching away happily oblivious to it all, as they should be given there is nothing in the sky. She is a skyline and has always been an oddball, in fact within a week of getting her we had named her Thickbar in honour of her stupidity, when I changed the door that they come out of the run through the others got it straight away, four weeks later she would still be waiting outside the original door pacing up and down looking enviously at the others. However she was out in this area in the summer and wasn't showing this behaviour at all. Anyone got any ideas what's causing it? I had wondered from the amount of times she has flown headfirst into the mesh that maybe it could be brain damage. Do your chickens have OCD?
