I came home today to a pile of feathers and two of my poor RIR hens dead. I have them in a coop at night but during the day I let them out in a run about 8x10 in my yard. It is just an enclosure with no roof. I put a tarp over one side for shade/ rain and have a few banana trees in the area also. Yesterday it rained very heavily for about 15-20 minutes. This morning they were fine when I fed them and my father in law saw them this afternoon and said they looked fine. However when I got home I saw a lot of feathers on the ground and both of them dead! No parts were missing and there was no blood. We don't have any natural predators here although there are feral cats in the area and mongoose but I haven't seen one in the past two years. I have been leaving them out during the day for the past 3 weeks and they were fine. Their eyes were all cloudy and their combs were very pale when I found them. Did something kill them, or did someone shoot them or poison them or did they catch a cold because of the rain yesterday? I'm pretty sad about it but I know it happens. I'm keeping the rest of my flock ( 2 delaware and 1 blue copper maran) inside there coop unless I can watch them outside until I can determine what killed the other two.
