Older Chicken Sitting A Lot

[lbgreenfield]

Hi there. I have a 3-year old Buff Orpington that likes to sit a lot...like, a lot. She sits under the log jungle gym in the run, she sits in the mulch landscaping bushes, she sits on my lap, she sits on patio under the table (where she currently is sitting as I write this), and now that the temps are getting colder, she spends most of her time sitting in the coop on the floor in the pine shavings. My Buff has had a fairly bad limp for the past year-ish, so she has trouble getting up and down from the sitting position and can limp OK to walk short distances, but if she were out in the yard and had to make a quick run for cover, I don't think she'd be able to do that.

I've checked her legs/hips/top+bottom+sides of feet/nails for any and all things, but can't seem to find out why she is limping and sitting more. I think she may have had a bad sprain this time last year that never healed properly or she has arthritis/gout or is just getting older. She seems to have lost a little bit of weight, but she did just go through a very hard molt and is still very slowly re-growing some of her feathers. She still eats and drinks, but not as much as she used to. She's also gone off lay for the winter/molt season.

Just curious if I should be alarmed at the amount of sitting she is doing lately. I think I might be overanalyzing things with her (it's the engineering mindset in me, haha) and might just have to realize that she is getting older and she won't be here forever. I've attached a few sitting photos

 

[Hei 20]

Hi there. I have a 3-year old Buff Orpington that likes to sit a lot...like, a lot. She sits under the log jungle gym in the run, she sits in the mulch landscaping bushes, she sits on my lap, she sits on patio under the table (where she currently is sitting as I write this), and now that the temps are getting colder, she spends most of her time sitting in the coop on the floor in the pine shavings. My Buff has had a fairly bad limp for the past year-ish, so she has trouble getting up and down from the sitting position and can limp OK to walk short distances, but if she were out in the yard and had to make a quick run for cover, I don't think she'd be able to do that.

I've checked her legs/hips/top+bottom+sides of feet/nails for any and all things, but can't seem to find out why she is limping and sitting more. I think she may have had a bad sprain this time last year that never healed properly or she has arthritis/gout or is just getting older. She seems to have lost a little bit of weight, but she did just go through a very hard molt and is still very slowly re-growing some of her feathers. She still eats and drinks, but not as much as she used to. She's also gone off lay for the winter/molt season.

Just curious if I should be alarmed at the amount of sitting she is doing lately. I think I might be overanalyzing things with her (it's the engineering mindset in me, haha) and might just have to realize that she is getting older and she won't be here forever. I've attached a few sitting photos

Poor baby. She must be tired. Give her a break from being a chicken. Pamper her.

 

[lbgreenfield]

Poor baby. She must be tired. Give her a break from being a chicken. Pamper her.

Haha, I can assure you she is a pampered chicken just like all my hens! I carry her around the yard in my arms, she gets cooked oatmeal and scrambled eggs for weekend brunch, she comes into the house with me, lots of things : )

 

[rosemarythyme]

If her legs are painful that would explain why she's sitting. I also have a "sitter" right now, and she's just molted as well, but she also has other health issues so it's not a surprise - I did check her feet and legs and don't see anything wrong, but she struggles to get around and we no longer expect her to roost.

Probably can't really do anything about it, just make sure she has comfortable places to sit around on.

 

[lbgreenfield]

If her legs are painful that would explain why she's sitting. I also have a "sitter" right now, and she's just molted as well, but she also has other health issues so it's not a surprise - I did check her feet and legs and don't see anything wrong, but she struggles to get around and we no longer expect her to roost.

Probably can't really do anything about it, just make sure she has comfortable places to sit around on.

Thanks @rosemarythyme . My Buff has plenty of comfy places to sit in the coop, run, and when out free ranging. Our roosts in the coop are low (only about 1 ft. off of the bottom), but just to be safe my husband built steps and a ramp (with foot rungs for extra grip) for her to use. She likes to use the ramp to get up and down the roosts. Although, as of late, I've been carrying her off the roost from the coop to the run in the mornings, she seems to like be shuttled around by her human servant. She has me trained well!

Here's a photo of her sitting in the mulch beds yesterday, she moved to the mulch from the patio shortly after I wrote my original post and stayed there for quite a while. I think she's taken after her mother's love of "people watching" (or in her case "chicken watching").