HippyGardener
Songster
Image attached so when I refer to who was living where and then how they were allowed to mingle you'll have a visual. I'll try to answer any of the usual questions I see asked most when trying to help people figure out what was wrong. My older layers (all hatched 1/17) live in the big "dog pen" coop along with all but one of my younger Lavender Ameraucanas. All but my older layers were hatched on or a tad before 3/1/17. In the little coop is one Lav Ameraucana and my two little frizzled bantam cochins.
So I've lost 2 of the 3 chickens who have displayed these symptoms. The first two were before my flock was tested for the NPIP program. When tested everybody passed with flying colors and she raved about how well all my chickens looked and they were well hydrated. So everyone has always been eating and drinking well.
1st chicken was my Dominique layer. One morning I went out to find her laying around (and her comb was folding over and only barely off color) instead of greeting me like usual. She stayed like that all day. I went out every 1/2 hour or so and held her up to the water nipples to make her drink. Next day she was 90% better, then the following day she was back to her usual self except she took about 2 weeks after that to start laying again. Her comb has never stood back up like before but she is 100% normal again.
2nd chicken was one of my Wyandotte layers a few weeks later. She was fine all day, but at my evening check was acting same as the Dominique had. So all evening I went out there obsessively to hold her up to the water. She wouldn't drink as well as the Dominique had for me, but I did this up until I put them all to bed. Next morning I found her dead.
All this time the two groups of chickens had not mingled, but could interact and even touch each other through the side of the pen. As you can see by the pic they had access to each other at the door. It was after those two incidents that NPIP was tested and all passed perfectly.
It's been well over a month since the Wyandotte passed. Last weekend we finally got to put up bird netting over the fenced in area. Until then only the littles in the blue coop were allowed in the fenced area because both times I tried the layer group out there one of them would fly over the fence almost immediately. After we got the netting up I allowed all the chickens to come out of both coops together. They had months of visiting through the fence and everyone got along beautifully and even looked so happy to have all the freedom. That brings me to.....after getting my NPIP certification:
3rd chicken: yesterday I noticed my frizzled bantam cochin pullet wasn't acting right. She would stand but was wobbly and she was laying around a lot instead of running around frolicking like she had been since I opened everyone up together. She was so happy to run in and out of the "big coop" and was hilarious to watch. Last night when she looked even worse so I brought her inside and put her in a wire kennel. I tried to give her water, but she had no interest in food or water. She just slept. Once before I went to bed she got up on her own to re-position herself, which I took as a good sign. Well.....this morning I found her dead. From the mess of food and water it looks like she may have convulses as she passed away.
Since she could touchy feely the chickens in the big coop through the fence and didn't show any signs of being sick until she could actually go into it....does that maybe mean there's something looming in my big coop making them sick? If she could interact with the chickens themselves and not catch anything from them, that's the only thing I can figure out.
I don't give a lot of treats, but before I could let the layers out I was growing wheatgrass for them so they could "graze" on that. Up to the point of anyone looking sick they all ate and drank fine. No one was getting bullied, they all got along and all even acted like buddies.
So far everyone else looks perfectly fine. I keep my coops clean and fluff up the ground in it once or twice a week. I just don't know why they are dying.
