Sudden Chicken Death Syndrome?

EllenLin said:

My healthy young white leghorn suddenly died today. She laid an egg today just as every other days. I am so sad! I brought her body to the shop that I bought her from 8 months ago as a chick. The vet is going to take a look at her tomorrow. I hope this will not happen again to the rest of my chickens. I take care of them everyday with clean water, healthy food and clean coop. God help me!

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Bocktobery 10 said:

 This seems to be the place to post about sudden chicken death, well, I'll add mine which just happened yesterday.  

  I noticed last night that one of my young creme legbar hens was missing... it was just not like her not to be on her roost.   I searched around, but it was getting late fast and even with a flashlight I was sure I probably would not be able to notice her hiding because of her coloring.   This morning I did another search, this time a more intensive all over the place search.   Still nothing.  I figured a fox took her and came in for a bit of rest.  

  When I went back out, I just happened to look into our rock garden and under an azalea bush she was laying there dead.   She had no marks on her whatsoever that she was hurt.   Her body was in what I'd describe as a dust bath 'bin' where the soil had eroded from where a chicken had been dust bathing.   She also had a bit of dirt in her feathers- particularly her tail feathers.  

   I have no idea what she died from, but I'm thinking she died suddenly when dust bathing?   It makes no sense.   She was healthy and exhibited no signs of any illness.   She had just started to lay eggs a few months before, although she, and most all of my hens had stopped laying eggs because of the cold weather and probably their fall molt.    As far as I know this one was not molting, but as I said, she appeared totally normal and healthy.    

  One thing I COULD note about her was that I almost lost her as a chick to some sort of virus or what-have-you.   Her little chick tummy was what I call "pluppy" ...  kind of blubbery and rotund.  She had stopped eating and was trying to get warm.  I think too her poop was starting to paste up on her rear end.   She was hardly moving around.   So I gave her some small dosages of some sort of medicine I have here, hoping it might pull her through and it did within two days.    Knowing how some viruses can do harm to the body and even at that- some medications can also harm the body, maybe there was some sort of harm done  back then to cause her to die so suddenly?  

     Anyway, its never pleasant to go through all this.   I'll miss her.  She was unusual because she had a blonde tuft of feathers on her head instead of the dark brown/black colored feathers that are usually on Creme Legbars. 

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