2 yr old Rhode Island Red passed away

[Stardustrose]

I introduced two chicks to my flock of 3. I was told they were hens and turned out to be roosters. 8-9 months later I finally found them both a home, but only due to the stress they put on my other hens. I had a nice quiet coop, until those two roosters got older. I believe due to the stress two of my hens were having issues with soft shell eggs, never had this issue until the roosters. They have a bowl full of Oyster shell, plus their food has Calcium. My Barred Rock is laying normal hard eggs again, but my 2yr old Rhode Island Red eggs continued to be soft or rubbery. She laid one egg that had an odd hard fleshy piece which was next to her broken soft egg. I took this into the vet and he said this might be a one time thing, but if it happens again, most likely she has some underlying health issue that she might of been born with. Well last week I found her fluffed up on her perch early in the morning, which was a cool morning...... open the coop to let them all out to free range thinking she was fluffed up due to it being cool. I decided to check on her again in about 15 minutes to find her on her side on the ground. I picked her up and seen her comb was turning blue, she was gasping for air and her eyes were closed. I checked to see if she had a full crop which she didn't, checked her for mites, she had none, looked in her mouth to see what looked like thick saliva. She suddenly started thrashing around and threw up then passed away. I have been searching and trying to figure out what went wrong or if I did something wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. So far my other two hens are doing well, beside going through molting.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

eggs continued to be soft or rubbe

odd hard fleshy piece which was next to her broken soft egg

Hi, sorry for your loss. This sounds like what's called a lash egg, it's kind of a rubbery yellowish chunk of stuff that is actually congealed pus from an infection in the reproductive tract. And no. It had nothing to do with anything you did or didn't do, dome chickens are just prone to it. And i fon't think there is snything you could have done to save her. Sometimes these things just happen.

When you lose a chicken you can send the chilled body to a state lab where a necropsy can be carried out to determine cause of death. This can often put your mind at rest to know she didn't have anything contagious.