hen tracks, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hen tracks n.

(US) illegible handwriting; also attrib.

1854		Arthur’s Home Mag. Jan.-June 446/2: There couldn’t be a man in Worcester read your old hen tracks.
1867		Student & Schoolmate XX:1 5: ‘Will you write to me , Dick?’ ‘My writin’ would look like hen’s tracks,’ said our hero.
1877		Hailing’s Circular n.d. 17/3: Who does he hold the Paper so close to his Eyes. Because the Correspondent that wrote it makes Hen Tracks.
1878		S.G. Huftalen Diary 17 Mar. in Bunkers Diaries of Girls & Women (2001) 48: I am perfectly ashamed of my journal there are so many blobs and goose tracks (or as pa calls them hen tracks) all the way through .
1883		Manchester Courier 26 May 7/2: He can’t read the hen tracks.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Feb. 13/1: ‘What do you think of my handwriting, and would you advise me to change it?’ […] Think you should employ another hen to scratch for you.
1891		Roanoke Times (VA) 11 Jan. 4/5: Without thinking I put the old hen-track signatire to them.
1896		Hawaiian Star (Honolulu) 5 Feb. 4/5: A telegram written in Russian or hen track Turkish paralyzes the Morse alphabet until it is translated.
1900		Dundee Courier 20 Sept. 7/2: How about the hen tracks— excuse me, I meant to say these hieroglyphics.
1907		NY Tribune 19 May 12/1: A Reader of ‘Hen Tracks’ [...][ one woman in Washington has a special knack of deciphering the less intelligent marks which serve often as addresses on envelopes.
1918		Goodwin’s Wkly (Salt Lake City, UT) 13 July 12/1: Slowly, the page began to fill with crazily-fashioned words looking like so many hen tracks.
[1921		A.L. Lavine Circuits of Victory 522: There is a story about Horace Greely, whose wretched handwriting was proverbial, to the effect that a hen wandered into his editorial office one day in his absence, and, upsetting a bottle of ink, left her inky hen tracks over several sheets of blank paper].
1928, 1950		et seq. in DARE.
1965–1970		in DARE.

In phrases

knock off hen tracks on a rolling piano (v.) [? typewriters were usu. reserved for business use]

(US black) to use a typewriter to compose a personal letter.

1943

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 9 Oct. 20: I had a mellow slave, knocking of hen tracks on a rolltop piano.