Hi! I'm brand new to raising chickens. I got my first hens yesterday. I had my hen house all set up and was really excited about them but 2 of the 3 my hens the kids and I got are now dead. I'm not sure why. I have a small coop (eglu classic) set up in the shade next to my house. My girlfriend sent me a chicken starter kit so I thought I knew what they needed. They've got water, food, shelter and are out of the sun and behind a privacy fence so my cat and dogs can't get them but now I've lost 2 of them. They were fine when I let them out into their run this morning and fine around 10am when my 4 year old went out to watch them, but by 2pm 2 of my hens were dead in their nesting box. I don't know what went wrong. I purchased 3 year old salmon faverolles from a local breeder. My girlfriend thinks it might be a combination of the heat, stress of moving and my dogs might have scared them into heart attacks. So far the dogs haven't barked at the hens but they do bark at the neighbor dogs so it is a possibility. My girlfriend is worried my remaining hen will be lonely. I'm afraid to add more in case I'm doing something horribly wrong and don't know it. What do I do now? Should I hang onto her and see if she does ok? Should I get her a friend? Do I give her away and either forget raising chickens or start over again? This was not the start to raising hens I was expecting....
Your chickens may have been ill when you got them. How did they act? We're they perky running around scratching and eating or were they sitting still, lethargic and sleeping a lot? Sounds like if they had food, water and shelter that were clean, you did nothing wrong. Don't be discouraged. It's just a rough start. Do,exactly what your doing. Explore the problem and make sure it was nothing you may have accidentally done and then get more chickens. Question the person you got the chickens from since they may be close by. Maybe they can give you some pointers.
So sorry for your losses. My concern would be that perhaps these birds were sick and the stress of moving, heat, etc. was just too much. If you were to add other birds at this point you would be risking infecting them as well. If you still have the two that passed, I would see about having your state lab or local university do a necropsy to determine cause. It's usually very reasonable and some places even do it for free. If you end up adding a few others, look up some info on integrating flocks. Good luck with your remaining girl and don't be discouraged most of the time chickens are just pure fun
They were spending a lot of time in their nesting box so maybe that is lethargic? They came out to talk when we approached.