Kind of in Shock.....Why does an apparently healthy chicken just die?

[littleandlewis]

Had our first death today. We just found our favorite Orpington in the coop dead. It looks like she died overnight. The other surviving chickens seem fine. She was fine yesterday.

Any ideas what causes sudden death like this?

 

[Silkie Nut]

My little silkie pullet bam-bam was just fine. The next day, we found her dead inside the coop. We think she got egg-bound because we found a mushy egg up top.
p.s.- so sorry for your loss. hugs

 

[speckledhen]

Sometimes, one will just die due to some insufficiency we cannot see. It happens, though we naturally want to know why. If she's been laying, it wasn't egg binding, wasn't internal laying. I've had a pullet die of a heart defect as she was coming into lay, just couldn't handle the strain on her heart. She was the picture of health until the night before, when her heart was racing. There are so many things that happen to hens, especially hatchery stock, even heart attacks, but there is no way for us to tell you what happened when death is the only symptom to go on.