2 dead today, this makes 4... freezing to death?

this morning, i found one of my young pullets (from last july) dead in the run. i must have missed her when i closed up, but i can't imagine why she would have chosen to stay out in the run instead of coming inside. it was -10 degrees last night, so either she died before night, or she froze to death in the night. our Japanese bantam wasn't looking so great either this morning... his comb was kind of purplish, and he wasn't moving. so i put him directly under the light and gave him some warm water and food. he ate the food, some of it, but was dead by 1pm. i can't imagine it's any kind of disease, since we lost one 2 weeks ago, and another one just before that, i think it's the cold weather thinning our flock. we've lost both bantam roos, and 2 of our chicks from Meyers. we had 6 from Meyers, 2 died within a week, and now 2 more have died, much later. i don't think I'm ordering from them again.

 

the first one we lost was our Dutch Bantam Roo, born in May. His wife, Mrs. Dutch Bantam is still doing fine. Mr. DB was kind of funny looking, and had bug eyes, and maybe a bit o' brain damage. Then that same day or maybe the next, our tiny little barred rock died (born July from a meyer's order)... this was back maybe 3 weeks ago. She was seriously runty, bottom of the pecking order, and seemed to be made of all feathers, so i wasn't really surprised that she had been excluded from the roost, and got really cold. i tried to warm her up, but she died. then, this morning, our welsummer from the Meyer order was dead, and our strange foundling japanese bantam roo was looking terrible... i don't know how old he was, we found him wandering in our yard in October, and yesterday, he was feeling fine... he was the new bottom of the pecking order. everyone else (other than my 30 week old cornish jumbo X, who is looking less than healthy right now) is doing fine! I hope it is just the cold, and the fact that our heat lamp (on a timer), didn't come on last night, the bulb was shot, and DH, who was supposed to shut the coop up, didn't realize.

 

thanks, i think it's probably the cold, but i do think that at least some of my meyer chicks must have some sort of weakness, or something, because of the 6 we had, we've lost 4! 2 as little chicks, and then 2 more to the cold... so recently, 2 meyer pullets and 2 bantam roos... it could also be that those breeds are just less hardy with this kind of cold... the red meyer chick and the dark one (don't know what they are) seem fine...

 

nella, i think you're right. it seems like whichever chicken is the dumbest/smallest/thinnest/least popular ends up dying... our tiny dutch roo was certainly an odd one... and this latest bantam roo, he came to us in bad condition, but had made much improvement over the past few months, and was my favorite, so i felt this loss keenly. I give them warm water every morning, afternoon and evening, and have a lamp in there on a timer. Last night I went out with my best friend, and DH was in charge. i don't think he gave them warm water, and I know he didn't rearrange them on the roost like I do... and he must not have counted.. if I'd been home, i'd have known that our welsummer was missing. but now another meyer chick is the smallest/weakest, i think she's a RIR, but she's kind of runty too... maybe I need to bring her inside.