2 chickens lost and looking for others insight with experience

[Jb2]

We have a small backyard of 6 chickens that are all 8 months old. We live in Florida so it can getting very humid and hot so we designed our coop with ventilation being a top priority. The girls have a outdoor fan in their run, 80% shade throughout the day, and frozen treats (their food just frozen) in thr afternoons when it's it's hottest. In the last week we have lost 2 of our chickens suddenly.

The first one I was outside with her at 6pm and I went back outside around 8pm to close up the coop and found her passed away. She had showed no signs of stress when I was with her 2 hours earlier and had laid an egg earlier in the day. It must have just happened because she was still limb besides her legs.
The 2nd one passed away 6 days later. I went out at 730am and noticed she was excited and not moving quickly. I immediately brought her in enclosed porch to give her a cool place. She refused to drink, eat, and was very sleepy. I got her to drink so,e water with ACV and after an hour she seemed to recovering and started to walk around and flap her wings. She had a yellow liquid poop that smelled normal. We stayed inside the porch for a couple more hours and she begun to get very sleepy and laying down. She passed away at 1030am. When I picked her up to take her after she passed there was a green liquid poop that came out of her. She had laid yesterday and seemed quite normal.

I am hoping someone has some insight or experience with this before. Unfortunately, I had called a dozen vets to get in to see someone and all were booked. The only ER one is 2 hours away so we may or may not have made it with her. Both of them were laying eggs regularly and showed no previous signs of distress. Any helpful feedback is appreciated.

 

[nuthatched]

What do you feed, including treats? Did you check their crops? Any chance they could have gotten into anything toxic or moldy? Green poop is a sign she wasn't eating or had a crop issue.

 

[Eggcessive]

I am sorry that you lost your two pullets. You have a good place in Kissimmee that performs necropsies on chickens to find the cause of death. In the meantime, feel and make sure their crops are emptying by the next morning. Make sure they are eating a balanced chicken feed, have shade, shaded water and good ventilation. Electrolytes occasionally when it is very hot may be helpful. Here is a contact for your state vet:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

 

[Jb2]

What do you feed, including treats? Did you check their crops? Any chance they could have gotten into anything toxic or moldy? Green poop is a sign she wasn't eating or had a crop issue.

For feed, they get Scratch and Peck whole grain layer feed. Treats they get carrot tops, Kale, frozen watermelon, tomatoe (their favorite). The feed is corn free and we don't give them scratch grain during the summer. I examined her before she passed and everything looked good. I will go back and check the coop, run, and feed area for anything moldy or toxic possibly and thoroughly disinfect everything just to make sure. I think it may be too late to check the crop again?

 

[Jb2]

I am sorry that you lost your two pullets. You have a good place in Kissimmee that performs necropsies on chickens to find the cause of death. In the meantime, feel and make sure their crops are emptying by the next morning. Make sure they are eating a balanced chicken feed, have shade, shaded water and good ventilation. Electrolytes occasionally when it is very hot may be helpful. Here is a contact for your state vet:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

Thank you for the info!

 

[All Ball]

It sounded like you thought the heat might have been the issue - one thing I do is use a stand-up mister I got at the hardware store - even if the chickens don't like to get wet it cools the air nearby. The necropsy will help you a lot in figuring this out. Otherwise, I'd just make sure that treats are not a large % of their diet; and I personally found an issue with the whole grain feed, that the top chickens pick out the "funnest" seeds so that each flock member doesn't get a balanced diet; I went back to pellets with seeds given as scratch treats. Hope some of this helps.

 

[Jb2]

It sounded like you thought the heat might have been the issue - one thing I do is use a stand-up mister I got at the hardware store - even if the chickens don't like to get wet it cools the air nearby. The necropsy will help you a lot in figuring this out. Otherwise, I'd just make sure that treats are not a large % of their diet; and I personally found an issue with the whole grain feed, that the top chickens pick out the "funnest" seeds so that each flock member doesn't get a balanced diet; I went back to pellets with seeds given as scratch treats. Hope some of this helps.View attachment 3175506

Interesting you said that about the feed because we had not been impressed with seed and found it to be dusty. We had ordered the Scratch and Feed Pellets approx a month ago and have just waiting for the arrival of it (Friday). I had wondered about the feed and glad you always mentioned it. We do have the mister attachment but are currently in rainy season in the afternoons right now so I was holding off. We do have theromaters in the run and coop that we can monitor from inside the house because I do worry about the heat index which is why the design of the coop and run with ventilation and shade being the primary focus. Thank you!

 

[Jb2]

Thank you to everyone who replied to this feed awhile back. I wanted to give you an update:
We had the necropsy completed and it came back with Marek's Disease or avian leukosis. To get the final result, we are pending an outside lab. Everything else came back clear. I am disappointed it happened but glad to have some closure that it was not something I was doing wrong.