Mental Illness & Animals

Do animals suffer from mental illness?

Now there's a knotty question for a Wednesday morning!
I got to thinking about this as Jeremy Kyle blasted out from the ipad when I was doing the washing up. It was a result of an early morning knock on the door and the arrival of another waif and stray.
For wrapped in a tea towel on the draining board, waiting for a good squirting with the ubiquitous antiseptic spray was a small bald hen.
" she's been bullied by her pen mates" her owner shared almost tearfully
...."And for months now she has been pulling at her own feathers"
The lady pointed at the hen's abdomen which was covered in sore pecked spots and small tufts of feather quills. She did indeed look a mess.
I felt for the owner. The poor woman was a bit fraught herself. Obviously the dream of a few happy and healthy chucks pecking around calmly in her back garden had changed into a bit of a nightmare for her. The self harming hen had left her all of a dither.
Now there is many reasons for this behaviour. Sometimes it's a broody thing. Sometimes it's a diet thing. Mites and skin problems may be a reason too but just occasionally a hen can just be mentally damaged in some way , just like people can be .
And like mental illness in the human population, the treatment of such a condition can be somewhat problematic.

I have seen " depressed" animals in my time, animals that look like the spark has gone out of them.
More often than not there is a physical causation for this, and often without medical intervention the animal will invariably die. But often a " listless and depressed" look may be just the simple result of a group animal being lonely.
Herd and flock creatures need to feel secure and part of something bigger.....
It's not rocket science.
Odd, destructive behaviour in dogs is often a product of their owners' stupidity and inappropriate care giving rather than to a mental aberration. Nurture is vital when dealing with animals.
Treat an animal with calmness, common sense and consistency and you will generally get a balanced animal in return .
Not always, but generally.
The final rule for good animal care is to make sure you treat the animal , like an animal.
They may be the love of your life but they are not little people.
Treating a dog, for instance, like it was a human child , is dangerous.
Dogs need to be treated differently....in a breed appropriate way...they need to understand you in dog terms...

And so what are my plans for this sad little hen, wrapped up in her tea towel on the drainage board?
Well I have now sprayed every bit of bare skin with purple skin cleaner ( to stop her pecking at blood spots) she has had some antibiotics, and has been placed into a clean run on her own, but in full view of the other hens. I rang a lady in the village whose son owns hens and have arranged for a very young teenage cockerel to be dropped off. He will hopefully bond with the sad little hen and when both are given free range on the field he will protect her from bullying. Cockerels are programmed to stop fighting.
I checked her carefully before returning her to her run. She looked calm and had bright eyes
She could have been mad as a box of frogs inside that little head of hers
I have no way of knowing
Waifs and stays

Waifs and strays