The other night I had noticed one of my chickens acting strange. Strange in that she was walking backwards and swinging her head. I didn’t think much of it at the time since chickens sometimes swing their head by the ground, trying to rub whatever is stuck on their beak off. I thought that was what she was doing and she wasn’t walking all around the run so I wasn’t alarmed.

The next day when the chickens were released from their pen to free range, everything was normal. I didn’t notice her walking or swinging her head, she looked fine.

When it came time to put the animals up, I put food in the run. The chickens that were out, went into the run, and the ones that were in the coop came out. That’s when I saw her once again acting odd. However, this time she walked backwards from the back of the run to the front to get to the water bowl. While she walked backwards, she was swinging her head. ODD! That is not normal chicken behavior.

Here’s the chicken’s background: Her name is Gretel. She is 4 years old, she will be five in March 2020. She is a black sex linked chicken..which also had the word Asian by it. We bought her at Tractor Supply.

The second night she was walking backwards, I searched the internet and found that chickens with a vitamin E or selenium deficiency (or both!). Chickens with this deficiency will have these symptoms: walking backwards, swinging head, be off balance.

I ended up taking tuna out to the coop but she had already gone back in for the night. I opened the coop door, offered the tuna to her, and she hopped from her roost to another roost. Didn’t seem to be off balance or out of it that time, did she!?

Since I have read that tuna attracts skunks and other animals, I put the tuna in the fridge. I took a half bag of spinach leaves and dumped it into the run. Spinach is known to have Vitamin E and this would give her and other chickens something to eat.

Edited: I forgot to add that I also gave her electrolytes with vitamin E in her water!

Next day the chickens were let out. Once again, Gretel is perfectly normal! No walking backwards, swinging her head.

There were spinach leaves still in the run. Hopefully she ate some.

Last night, she didn’t come out of the coop so I’m not sure if she still is walking backwards.

I find it odd, if she is deficient in Vitamin E or selenium (or both!). Why doesn’t she walk backwards during the day?

I’m working on getting the video. I will be updating this post soon with the link to the video!

Update: I’ve been feeding her spinach for Vitamin E, tuna for selenium, and also giving her water with electrolytes. I gave her the spinach and tuna at night with the rest of the food. Almost a week later of dealing with this, last night she didn’t walk backwards so hopefully this is improvement! Check out our video below!