Chicken wasn't roosting, found on coop floor in the morning.

[nervous chicken mama]

I have a 1 year old salmon faverolle who was not in the coop when I went to lock it up last night. Instead she was laying in one of the nesting boxes that is outside the coop (in the run). There was one intact egg and one smashed egg in there with her, she was not sitting on either one. I brought her in the house for a minute and gave her some hydro-hen and a watched her for a few minutes. She seemed ok so I brought her out to the coop and she went up onto the roosting bar. This morning when I opened the coop, she was on the floor. Could she possibly be broody? There weren't any eggs in the coop and she was just sort of laying there. She came out with the others and seemed fine. I don't think there's any type of bullying going on....not sure what it is.

 

[nuthatched]

She might nit have made it inside before it got too dark to see,maybe a late layer.

 

[Saveria]

Welcome to BYC. If she was broody, she would be making some peculiar sounds and fluffing up her neck feathers when you came near. Did anything like that happen? I would see how she is doing tomorrow, she may have something going on.

 

[Msfur08]

Doesn’t sound broody. I have seen mine sometimes not roost in time before it gets dark. I usually check mine at night (or have my kids check them), so we will move them to the roost of they aren’t up there already.

I don’t think you are wrong to be concerned because chickens hide illness and injury well.

If it were my hen, I would bring her into the chicken hospital (just a crate inside) and see if she is eating fine, walking fine, drinking fine, pooping normal. I would also feel for any swelling on her belly between her legs.

We had a 4yr old hen recently that looked fine except she was limping. Since chickens can be cruel to anyone away more than a couple days, I opted to give her half a baby aspirin and keep her with the flock because she didn’t seem contagious, was eating, drinking, and pooping fine, and she had no swelling or signs of broken bones or cuts. She was still able to get around despite the limping and is higher on the pecking order and less likely to be bothered. She was also vocalizing, so the pain wasn’t too debilitating. I also factored in that she is a Cream Legbar and they don’t handle confinement well (she never has ever since she was a chick). If it had been my Polish or one of the young hens that is more likely to get bullied, I might have taken a different approach. Each chicken has individual factors that influence how things are handled.

We kept a close eye on her. She would peck around with the others for a while then pretend to sit on eggs (keeps them safe from others suspecting they are weak). Over the course of a week, she gradually got better and seems fine now.

So, yours may have a slight leg pain that is keeping her from jumping but not keeping her from walking normally. I would just keep an eye on her to see if any other symptoms pop up.

Whenever someone seems sick or hurt, I might throw some DE in their food or Hydro Hen in their water because maybe they have some kind of stressor, internal or external, that I don’t know about and DE and Hydro Hen won’t hurt even if nothing is wrong with them.