Dead chicken

[Jackie-83]

I went out to open my coop and let my girls out into their run, and 6 of the 8 came out. This isn't strange because they are often in the nesting box, but i poked my head in just the same to make sure someones not on the roost or otherwise acting poorly. One was in the nesting box, the other was on the floor outside of the nesting box. She's dead. Rigor mortis is set in, so im guessing she died at least a couple ago. I see no signs of trauma, everyone was fine last night when they went to roost, and the others appear to be ok now. Is this some kind of disease that my others may need to be treated for, or some random thing that just happens? I'm a farm girl with a lifetime of animal experience, but this is the first time I've had chickens and i don't understand what happened. What did i miss? What should I be looking for?

 

[coach723]

I'm very sorry about your hen.
The best way to know what happened is by necropsy. There are many possibilities, reproductive infections, cancers, organ failure (heart or liver are not uncommon), parasites, virus's, etc. With nothing else to go on it's almost impossible to guess. If you still have the body you can refrigerate (don't freeze) and send of for necropsy (resources linked below). Some people also do their own informal ones, to look for obvious abnormalities, which is sometimes helpful, but it does lack the lab work that way, which can ID virus's or bacterial infection. If you want to try doing your own, there are those here that will look at pictures and give you opinions based on their own experiences.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf
https://www.metzerfarms.com/PoultryLabs.cfm

 

[pozees2]

There are things to be concerned about that you can check for, but also things that happen to chickens that you can't treat for, or detect, because they hide any symptoms from you as a defense mechanism, and then they just die - most commonly cardiac ailments, or in the case of hatchery hens bred for high production, to reproductive problems. You can, and should, check for parasites - mites and lice - in the coop and on the other birds, and if you have a vet who will do a fecal float for you, or if you can do one yourself, you can check for internal parasites. Are the other birds acting the same, eating and drinking as always, etc?

I am sorry for your loss. It is an unfortunate fact of keeping flocks that we are going to lose them, often to things beyond our control. Hopefully it was just something specific to that bird and not something that will affect the whole flock.

 

[Heatherella]

I’m sorry you lost a hen! It does happen and sometimes for reasons that are a complete mystery. I had this happen when within the first year we had chickens. I went out one morning and a chicken had just died and had no obvious signs of illness or trauma. At the time I was feeding them Dumor brand food from Tractor Supply. I was suspicious that maybe the food was poor quality so I changed them to Purina Layena and haven’t had any problems since. Best of luck!

 

[Jackie-83]

I'm very sorry about your hen.
The best way to know what happened is by necropsy. There are many possibilities, reproductive infections, cancers, organ failure (heart or liver are not uncommon), parasites, virus's, etc. With nothing else to go on it's almost impossible to guess. If you still have the body you can refrigerate (don't freeze) and send of for necropsy (resources linked below). Some people also do their own informal ones, to look for obvious abnormalities, which is sometimes helpful, but it does lack the lab work that way, which can ID virus's or bacterial infection. If you want to try doing your own, there are those here that will look at pictures and give you opinions based on their own experiences.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf
https://www.metzerfarms.com/PoultryLabs.cfm

A necropsy is not in my budget right now, so I will check out the links and try this myself. As far as parasites... is it common for a chicken to be fine and then just die over night without some sort of symptoms leading up to it. I eill look for both but should i focus on internal or external parasites? The only advice i have been given is to dust them every so often for mites and fleas. I was never advised to treat for internal worms. Whick seems odd to me because every other animal I've ever had was on a deworming schedule (they got a dose once a month even if there was not an active worm infestation).

 

[djcram]

we just had one pass for no apparent reason.....we think cardiac. no one else is sickly. she was not egg bound as she had laid an egg sometime within the four hour span of my husband checking on them and night time check. her egg was normal - we cracked it open to see. did not seem traumatic injury and her BFF was lying beside her dead body when she was found. if. another ended up sick or died we would have done necropsy but believe heart failure was the cause.

 

[Jackie-83]

I’m sorry you lost a hen! It does happen and sometimes for reasons that are a complete mystery. I had this happen when within the first year we had chickens. I went out one morning and a chicken had just died and had no obvious signs of illness or trauma. At the time I was feeding them Dumor brand food from Tractor Supply. I was suspicious that maybe the food was poor quality so I changed them to Purina Layena and haven’t had any problems since. Best of luck!

 

[coach723]

There may have been symptoms that you missed, birds are very,very good at hiding illness. It is a survival instinct with them, so things do get missed. When there is no real clues to what happened then the broadest, most complete picture is helpful in trying to figure it out. Check the body over externally everywhere to look for anything out of the ordinary, mites/lice, injuries hidden in feathers, abdominal bloat etc. Look inside the beak and throat, and eyes. When you open her up take pictures of organs in place and again once removed. Having something in the picture for scale (like a coin) can help others who may look. When you look at her digestive tract, if parasites are an issue, they will be there. If there is a reproductive problem then those are usually identifiable. The pictures in the manual I attached will hopefully help with what generally normal looks like, if you find something abnormal or suspicious then someone here may recognize it or you can search the web for similar pictures, they are there. Sometimes cause becomes obvious once you look, sometimes less so, depending on what happened. It may be difficult to do, but I always feel that by doing it they may provide information that helps the rest of the flock, I may learn something important, so it's worth it.

 

[Jackie-83]

I guess the pic didnt upload... i am feeding tractorsupply brand as well. Back

There may have been symptoms that you missed, birds are very,very good at hiding illness. It is a survival instinct with them, so things do get missed. When there is no real clues to what happened then the broadest, most complete picture is helpful in trying to figure it out. Check the body over externally everywhere to look for anything out of the ordinary, mites/lice, injuries hidden in feathers, abdominal bloat etc. Look inside the beak and throat, and eyes. When you open her up take pictures of organs in place and again once removed. Having something in the picture for scale (like a coin) can help others who may look. When you look at her digestive tract, if parasites are an issue, they will be there. If there is a reproductive problem then those are usually identifiable. The pictures in the manual I attached will hopefully help with what generally normal looks like, if you find something abnormal or suspicious then someone here may recognize it or you can search the web for similar pictures, they are there. Sometimes cause becomes obvious once you look, sometimes less so, depending on what happened. It may be difficult to do, but I always feel that by doing it they may provide information that helps the rest of the flock, I may learn something important, so it's worth it.
Where should i post those pics?

 

[Jackie-83]

Update... I had my husband open her up. Although we are not even close to being chicken experts, my husband has been a wild game processor for 28 years. To start out we found an area on her chest that did not have feathers growing. The only way to see the bald spot was by moving the other feathers out of the way. Is this normal or an indication of pests? mites? fleas? Once we opened her up everything appeared normal to start with. I was surprised at how small her heart was compared to her. She was just shy of 8 lbs. Her heart was about the size of a quarter and as big around as those little bouncy balls you get from the machines at the supermarket. She had an egg almost ready to lay. The only abnormality we could identify was one lung was clearly unhealthy. If was slightly discolored, and extremely spongy. If it were a mamal id say she had pneumonia. We decided to cut it, what we saw looked like pics of human lungs of a life long smoker. Also, appeared to have a "growth" towards the bottom of it. The other lung seemed perfectly healthy and the tissue seemed normal. So i don't know exactly was wrong with her. But unless someone here things this could be some kind of communicable disease, im going to chock it up as a random occuance.