5 month old Bantam died unexpectedly.

[elroath]

Hi there, we are brand new to raising chickens and purchased 4 old english bantam pullets last week from a breeder and today one of them was very slow moving in the morning, later in the morning she was lethargic and just sitting in the pen...so, we kept checking on her, a little while later, she was lying down in the pen alone and the others had all gone back into the hen house, I picked her up and brought her in the house and she died in my arms a few minutes later. When she died, she fluffed up, pooped a little spot of white on my shirt and seemed to have some type of tremor, then clear liquid came out of her mouth and she stopped breathing. None of the hens have begun laying yet, and we did not see any visible signs of a problem. We want to figure out what happened, as we are concerned for the rest of the flock.

We have been reading lots to prepare for our chickens and also getting advice from others. Some things we are wondering if we did wrong are: the breeder said it was not necessary to give the chickens grit if they were going to be free ranging and she was not giving them grit...so, we were not giving them grit. We only had them for one week, so, are not sure if this caused a problem. Also, we had not been putting the food and water in the hen house at night and are wondering if this may have caused a problem. Lastly, we had just given the hens some Nutrena hen scratch for the first time last night as a treat.

Any wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Eleanor

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I too keep the food and water in the run, not the coops. That wouldn't be it.

I don't have anything else to say!! Sorry!

I am so sorry for your loss.