Acute death with no marks

[alang]

My husband got home this evening to find one of our 3 month old hens down and weak in the middle of the run. He said she looked dead, lying lateral and not moving. He scooped her up and she was twitching and seemed like she couldn't move her legs. They were rigid maybe? He said not limp. Within 5 minutes she was dead. Afterward (when I got home 3 hours later) she had a small puddle of fluid and lots of sand/soil from her head (unsure hostile or mouth). There are no marks suggesting trauma. Everyone else is fine. She was in good flesh with no soft feces in her feathers. She looks perfectly clean so I doubt she was lying in her dusty run for long. She was in the center of the run near her ramp into the coop when he found her. Food and water available and definitely not the warmest day we have had. I hatched them all and have no other contact with other chickens and nobody visits who could have brought anything contagious so I did not vaccinate, including for Marek's. They had some corn on the cob and apple scraps this morning but they get those treats often. I checked on everyone else again in the dark and everyone looked sleepy but fine... I don't want a repeat experience any time soon. Could she have choked? Does this sound contagious? Help!

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi,

Sorry about your loss. Im certainly no expert, but i had a chicken die from what i think was sudden death syndrome (bit like "cot death" in babies i suppose) and there was evidence of fluid discharge from its mouth, where it lay, so choking is not necessarily the cause. As for what it could be - I'll leave that to the more experience BYCers.

CT

 

[glandongirl]

I will be interested to hear what others think. Just lost my only chicken. She had watery stools the afternoon of her death but other than that nothing odd. She died in her coop after she went to roost.

 

[motyra]

I lost one of mine as well this week. Somewhat watery stools but other than that she was the picture of health. Very alert and active. i found her dead in the coop in the morning. No signs of struggle, no signs of anything. Her companion was Non-plussed as to the fact that a dead body was in the coop with her. Now i have a solitary chicken who gets very depressed. She went through this last year as well.
I really want to know what happened before the other one succumbs as well.

 

[Zinniah]

How sad and scary, i hope someone can help you out.

 

[glandongirl]

Thank you.

 

[alang]

I am learning as I go as these are my first chickens. Any suspected cause of sudden death syndrome? Will any more die this way? I'm scared to check on them this morning. I'm sorry other people are having this experience also. I feel helpless. At least with a predator attack in could blame myself and then fix the glitch in the coop design. Is this experience common? Have most people lost a chicken without any evident cause?

 

[bigmomma85]

My my! Is no easy place to quickly test the bloods? In Germany, a suddenly dead chicken I draws the blood as quickly as possible and drop at vet. Cheap test, and I know is my problem, I fix, is bad genetic, not buy from same place.

 

[mg15]

Sorry
Sometimes we never find out why.