Dead chicken, no apparent cause?

I'm assuming there are any NUMBER of things this could be, but I'd like to hear at least a little bit of feedback that might give me an idea what might have happened...

We found a dead chicken today, in the coop. Just sprawled out on the ground, legs behind her, neck tucked around. No injuries. We really don't have predators around here anyway. The other girls seem just fine, and as far as memory serves, this one was fine last time I saw her as well, this morning.

I'm totally befuddled. Any ideas? She's about 14 months old and perfectly healthy, as far as we know. No changes in feed or ranging habits, EXCEPT one of the hens was carrying a dead mouse around yesterday. It was a buff, but we have two, and we're not sure which one had it. Could have been the dead one. So- could the mouse be diseased? Or could she possibly swallow something too big for her to be able to digest?

Kjirstyn said:

I'm assuming there are any NUMBER of things this could be, but I'd like to hear at least a little bit of feedback that might give me an idea what might have happened...

We found a dead chicken today, in the coop. Just sprawled out on the ground, legs behind her, neck tucked around. No injuries. We really don't have predators around here anyway. The other girls seem just fine, and as far as memory serves, this one was fine last time I saw her as well, this morning.

I'm totally befuddled. Any ideas? She's about 14 months old and perfectly healthy, as far as we know. No changes in feed or ranging habits, EXCEPT one of the hens was carrying a dead mouse around yesterday. It was a buff, but we have two, and we're not sure which one had it. Could have been the dead one. So- could the mouse be diseased? Or could she possibly swallow something too big for her to be able to digest?

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I've found a few unexplained deaths, over the years. As long as its an isolated incident, I write it of as being just one of those things. Could be a genetic predisposition to early heart failure. Could be an internal problem, that progressed to fast for you to notice.
If it was the dead mouse, I'll let you know, as my flock probably ate 10 of them yesterday. We moved some old lumber piles and there were mice everywhere. It wouldn't be the first time they've had rodent snacks.

I'd like to know answers too as I just found my favorite hen dead in one of the nest boxes...no injury as far as I can tell, zero chance of a predator (locked coop/run) and when I saw her this morning she seemed totally fine. I don't think I'll ever know, though...only thought is a sudden injury or maybe some sort of spider or insect bite? because I couldn't find anything wrong with her, not that I'm an expert but it didn't feel like there was anything broken in her neck or back. I at least know it wasn't a problem with egg-laying since she was the only EE in the flock and there was a perfect, totally normal blue egg in the nest box today. (Her last egg...sniff)

Then again when I was in college I had a pet parakeet who literally died in front of me one day, NO clue. One minute he was fine, then one minute he was flapping his wings and screeching, and then boom, dead. There's a lot of birdy internals that I think are hard to visually detect, and they are the masters of hiding things unless there's something SERIOUSLY wrong, or that they can't control (like sneezing, or limping). :/ My condolences...I know I feel terrible for not knowing what it was, and moreso because I want to know so I can try to prevent something happening to the rest, for sure.

Scribbles said:

some sort of spider or insect bite?

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I'd be surprised, if it were an insect bite. My chickens have decimated the black widow population around here. I have to rescue any tarantulas, that wander into the chicken yard, or else they're fair game. I just wish the chickens would hunt at night. It would help control the scorpions and crickets.
I had some chicks in the yard a few years back. They were thrilled finding all the garden pests. I saw a honey bee, crawling on the ground, near the chicks. I figured they would eat it. Even at a couple of weeks old, they did not bother it. Must be some instincts kicking in, to avoid striped insects.

The only reason we pondered a spider bite is because we discovered a huge nest of spiders in the roof of the coop when we went to clean it out after we found Piper's body...in all the time we've had this one (well over a year at this point) and in all the times we opened it to gather the eggs or generally check on them, we never thought to look UP. We had a mysterious incident with one of the other chickens as well, where she was unable to walk for weeks (and then started to recover about as suddenly as we found her sprawled on the ground).

At least for our coop I do ponder if the inside is too dark and maybe the two had accidents which caused them to fall and injure themselves; though there's a thousand ways an animal can decide to injure or kill itself and I know I can't think of them all. X/

Yes, not knowing is lame! I've been watching the other girls closely and being nervous every time I open the coop. So far so good...

Good evening

I just found one of our wyandottes dead in the same position you described in your original post. No apparent reason. The other two are fine, as of this writing.
No foul play- was free ranging earlier today with the other two. a few hours before I discovered her , I checked on them and had to look under the raised hen house
to see her as she was alive but not with the other two. I lock them in their HH every night to be critter safe, and discovered her a few feet from where I last saw her.
Other than the posts I read , has anyone offered up any possibilities?

Bummed in California.
(aka Michael)

We had a meat bird die last week and I found her in the same exact position as our first bird. She had been struggling for breath all day and slowly suffocating (comb turning purple), and it appears she had some variation on a heart attack, since Cornishes are famous for that. Based on that I almost wonder if our first bird just had a heart attack for some reason; perhaps a weak genetic strain, like somebody mentioned (if I remember right).

Mine is the exact same thing fine this morning no fowl play laying is normal. I think it is more sad because I don't know what happend. So far the other two are fine