My Poor Chicken

I am writing this, hopefully, to encourage those of you who have chickens. As we know, chickens are a big asset to our gardening, and they produce their own kind of fruit; eggs.

I pray for my chickens to be productive, and to safely lay their eggs. Hens can become egg-bound, and that could be life threatening. Chickens go through a lot of strange things that I never knew about before I had them.

Over the summer, my chickens stopped laying eggs. All of them, except two. One barred rock and the other an Americauna. The Americauna did eventually stop laying, but only for a short time. But the barred rock kept faithfully laying an egg, almost every day, in spite of the fact that all the other girls stopped laying.

 The barred rock continued to lay eggs until about a month ago. Then something strange happened. This particular chicken was outgoing and always with the group, but now she goes off into the bushes everyday, and just stays under the bushes. When I come out with food, all the others come running. But Clocky doesn't care anymore.

 Clocky appeared to be sick. At first, I thought maybe she was egg-bound, so, I went to the Internet to see what to do to take care of an egg-bound chicken. I soaked her in warm epsom salts water, 2 days in a row. I never felt any egg in her, but I did get to learn more about the chicken's anatomy by doing this!

  I prayed for Clocky to get well. And she appeared to be well again. But this week, she is hiding under the bushes again, or just sitting in the coop. Maybe she wants to be away from the rooster?

  It's been almost a month now, and Clocky is still not laying eggs (although I had more eggs the other day than I do hens. Not sure what happened, and don't know if perhaps Clocky did lay an egg).

  Clocky's personality is one of being an extrovert. When I got my first 3 chickens, they all came from the same place, and those 3 ended up being very well bonded. Unfortunately, one of them was a rooster, and he really does think he is the one who rules the roost! But the trio is now only a duo, with Clocky missing from the group.

  But for now, Clocky has a different personality. She isn't gregarious at the moment. One time, she even attacked one of the other girls who also hides a lot in the bushes.

  There are 2 reasons I know she is molting. First, she isn't laying eggs right now. She needs to take a break for she has laid eggs for 18 months straight, which isn't what hens usually do. Also, I am finding her feathers here and there. I read somewhere that when chickens molt, it is painful, and feels like a toothache (I would be interested in learning where the author of that article figured out how a chicken feels when they are molting!). Also, it is very stressful for them.

  So, unless there is something else wrong with her, other than molting, she is going through a hard, rough molting period. None of the other girls went through it with this much difficulty. Hopefully, she will come out of it soon and feel better.

  So, if anyone is wondering why their hen is acting strange all of the sudden, perhaps she is molting.

  Here are a couple of articles on molting:
An In depth Look At Molting
What Happens When Chickens Molt

Can't find Clocky. But everyone else is
in this picture.

Update: The day after I wrote this article, we lost Clocky. She was found no longer alive in her nest box the next morning. We loved our little pajama girl and will greatly miss her.