Stress is a major contributor to ill health in chickens and can also make them more prone to a number of vices such as feather picking, egg eating, comb or vent pecking.
Chickens kept in intensive conditions are constantly subjected to stress which is why farmers see such high mortality rates and have to pay out to keep birds healthy and make them productive. Fortunately, keeping chickens in our back garden isn’t exactly intensive as long as they have a sufficiently large run or are let out of their run regularly to free-range although there are pleanty of other times when chickens can suffer from stress.
In short, stress is best avoided whenever possible and a little bit of care and forethought can dramatically reduce stress in your birds.
So how do we know what stresses chickens? Well, some years ago, there were studies done that measured the stress hormone ‘corticosterone’ of birds in different situations and it is this research that has enabled us to understand the stressors.
Stressors.
As well as intensive conditions causing stress, the other main stressors can seem quite trivial to us.
- Handling. This is one of the biggest stressors. Chickens are a prey species so naturally, if caught and picked up, they become stressed. Whilst regular handling is important for health checks, chasing a bird around a run for 5 minutes every time will not help. Try to catch birds in a confined area such as a house quickly and calmly. Hold the wings firmly and then transfer the bird to the holding position with your right hand underneath her, breast in the palm of your hand, fingers holding the tops of the legs. Her head should be underneath your arm so her head is looking behind you. Use your left hand to examine her.
- Introducing new chickens. Chickens are flock animals that have a pecking order. It is thought the ancestors to our chickens, the Red Jungle Fowl of South East Asia use the pecking order to assist in their survival. If every bird has her place, when it comes to feeding time, each one can have her turn and they don’t have to spend precious time arguing which may alert predators to their where-abouts. Every hen knows her place in the pecking order and by introducing new birds, the pecking order is upset. No hen knows where she stands and this will cause arguments and considerable stress for days until they have sorted themselves out into a ‘new flock’.
- Lack of food or water. This stress is completely avoidable of course but we all have those one off days when we suddenly realise that our birds have run out of water for one reason or another. A leaky water container, frozen water or just a forgetful moment!
- Extreme heat. Chickens don’t sweat. To cool down, a chicken must either take on cool water (and excrete more to lose the excess fluids and some heat) or pant which removes heat through the air they exhale. Chickens are much better equipped to deal with the cold and can keep their body temperature up by eating more and trapping air inside their feathers to insulate themselves thermally. Heat will cause chickens to become stressed.
- A new environment. This can be taking a bird to a show, getting your birds for the first time or just moving them to a different house or run. Another environmental change that is hard to avoid but causes considerable stress for your birds is when there has been a covering of snow.
- Egg laying. This is surprising since this is a natural things that chickens do but egg laying does cause stress on your hens. Giving them a peaceful, private, darkened nest box can help. Try not to disturb hens that are in the process of laying.
- Predation. Foxes or other predators visiting the garden on a regular basis are likely to cause stress. In the extreme case, after a fox attack, even though a chicken may survive the wounds inflicted by a fox (he grabs a mouth full of her feathers for example and the chicken escapes), she can still die because of the stress.
If you can minimise stress, your birds will be less prone to picking up disease which is something we would all like: happy, healthy chickens!
One of my chickens fell from the tree. I think she has dislocated a joint. What can I do? I have brought her in to a cat box. Given her food and water.
You need to take her to your vet.
not exactly on topic but i didnt find something relevant to what i want to ask: is it ok if i feed my hens firethorn?it is toxic for humans but my hens seem to love it.
also:im planning on planting sea-buckthorn on my garden, mostly for my chicks to eat is this a good choice?
im looking forward to an answer
thanks
Sorry Mike, I’ve never heard of Firethorn…
We have had chickens for about nine months now. Unfortunately recently, we have three of our chickens that look like they’re getting picked on. On their butt area all the feathers have now gone missing and you can see scabs. I don’t know what to do, but I’m really concerned about my chickens. what’s going on? Should we separate the chickens?
Check that it is them pecking one another and not lice (you will find lice eggs around the vent). You could try an anti-peck spray but the easiest solution if you have the space is to give them a larger area to range, then they can avoid the bullies.
Hi not sure if you can shed any light?? I’ve got 4 ex bats that we’ve had since March last year. For a couple of days one has been what I thought was broody as she was sitting on any eggs layed. Today I noticed she was quite quiet and this afternoon she seemed to be sitting with her feather puffed and her wings out a little (as she does in the summer when she’s too hot). I put her in a bed with straw under our stairs (one of her favourite places) in our house to keep an eye on her overnight to take to the vets first thing in the morning but she seemed to have some sort of fit and died. I did notice a rather yuky yellow/green poo this evening and had to clean her bottom feathers. These are our first chickens so we are novices, worried now about the other 3 don’t want to let anything happen to them??
She had a disease – what exactly, I don’t know since these are ‘sick chicken’ symptoms. Chickens being predatory animals will hide disease and illness for as long as possible so when they do show signs of illness they will often go down hill very quickly.
Hi, I just went outside (12.20am) and found 1 of my 2 chickens out of their pen. I thought my son had put both away at around 6pm. She look really unwell. One of her wing was dragging, she looked very fatigued and unsteady on her feet. As there had been 5 children playing ouside this arvo, I instantly thought 1 had hurt her. So I picked her up to check her and noticed clear fluid running out of her back end, as I held her out in front of me she continued to leak the clear fluid until a yolk fell out (no shell). I put her back on the ground and she seemed to walk a little better (still slower than normal) all the way back to her coop and into the inclosed laying box with the other hen. She is now safely locked in the coop but my question is could it just be stress from being apart from her friend for 6 hours as they never go into their coop that easily and what do I need to do to make her better (if she survives the night that is) I don’t know anything about first aid on chickens and feel like I need to do something
TIA & regards
Tracey from Australia
I would keep her confined for a while and make sure she is ok. It’s odd, I’m not entirely sure what has happened but stress will not help her.