Rural Gardening: Red Rosie, the Rescued Chicken, 1 by DrDoolotz

DrDoolotz wrote:
OK, what the heck is this about? Red Rosie has a weird new habit. I watched her do this for about 20 minutes today. She was preparing to lay an egg (it came out about half an hour after this behavior). She was in her night-time kennel - she free ranges in the day but goes back to the kennel to sleep and to lay her eggs. She is so well trained.

Anyway, I was watching her in there, and she was all squatty and preparing to lay, and then she began picking up bits of wood shavings in her beak, and turning her head around and dumping them on her back. She would do this repeatedly for about 5 minutes, then get up, turn a different direction (the shavings would fall off) and then start up again. She would pick up shavings, turn, put them on her back, pick up more, etc, without stopping to take a break or anything.

Here is a pic of her (her head is to the left) with a bunch of shavings on her back that she dumped there. Does anyone else have a hen that does this? What is that for? Decoration? Boredom waiting for the egg to come out? New hairdo (featherdo?)

She's adorable, but sometimes she's a little nutty.