Chickens dying. Help!

[cleoppa]

Hello,

I have 11 chickens in a pen with a chicken coop. Ten hens, one rooster. A mix of Ameracauna, Australorp, White Leghorn and Rhode Island Red. They are six months old and just started laying. As far as I can tell from the egg colors, all were laying. They have a nice sized pen and a coop. I have had chickens in here before, but these are all I have now and have had for some time. Never had any problems with my last batch (except for predators and that was fixed and rather obvious). They are eating layer pellets.

Yesterday, I went in to take care of them and one of them was laying outside, dead. Today, I found another one inside the coop, dead. We had a death in the family an hour before, so I can't say I really studied the dead chickens, but I didn't see anything obviously wrong with them...

After the second one died, I studied up a bit. I picked up a few chickens. I didn't see any mites around the vent. One chicken did not seem well. She was walking a little unsteady and low to the ground and seemed like she had a rasp to her breathing. Everyone else, as far as I could tell, seemed OK.

Anyone have any ideas? Is there anything I can do for them?

Thanks!

 

[QueenMisha]

You should really perform an autopsy on any other birds which die. This sounds like either an environmental or contagious issue. Autopsy can be very informative on diagnosing health issues, which is important. Anything causing sudden death tends to be quite serious.