Hen falls off perch a lot

[Dhkoenig]

Hi All - Three of my hens are around 3 years old and (knock wood) are in good health. We have a camera in our coop and like any good crazy chicken lady, I check it every time I get up to use the loo in the night. Recently one of our girls, a big buff orpington named Butternut, has been falling off her perch at night. It is the same coop, same roost, nothing changed at all. When we rewind and watch her fall it seems like she has a dream or something. All of a sudden she just falls off and she will start to lift or flap a wing as she starts to fall, it literally looks like she had a dream and something startled her out of her sleep and she fell. This has been at least 4 times in the past couple of months and two within the last week. She is fine during the day and I put her back up when she falls (last night at 3am cuz she was directly under the other chickens so I didn't want her to get pooped on) and she stays there fine. Very weird. Has anyone had this?

 

[Tookie]

How is she doing? Does this only happen at night? I'm wondering if its something neurological.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I have but it was a bird that had known neurological and physical defects, from wry neck to deformed feet. As she got older she could no longer make it up to the roost and if placed there, couldn't maintain balance to stay on through the night. Towards the end we were putting her in a cardboard box at night on the floor to prevent her from hurting herself.

 

[Dhkoenig]

How is she doing? Does this only happen at night? I'm wondering if its something neurological.

she is otherwise completely normal. She is definitely not a skinny girl (LOL) For some reason she has always been rather fat and gets the same diet as all my other girls who aren't. Unfortunate metabolism but it doesn't seem to effect her health. Its so weird. And once I place her back up there she stays on til morning. Unsolved Mysteries!!!

 

[Tookie]

she is otherwise completely normal. She is definitely not a skinny girl (LOL) For some reason she has always been rather fat and gets the same diet as all my other girls who aren't. Unfortunate metabolism but it doesn't seem to effect her health. Its so weird. And once I place her back up there she stays on til morning. Unsolved Mysteries!!!

You might want to give her some vitamin E and see if that helps.

 

[Lisamg]

Hi I have a chubby buff with exactly the same issue! She looks like she’s having the dream where you wake up all jumpy like your falling. It’s happened twice in the last month. We lowered the bars and put extra bedding but i have no idea why it’s happening. She does have a harder time positioning herself on the 2x4 because she’s so big but this seems like she’s just sleeping and getting startled
How is yours doing and has it happened again?