6 month old hen, laying for a week, died suddenly. Was fine this morn

[peacebird]

i feed countryside organic layer and scratch with treats of hardboiled egg and leftover salad, occaisionally leftover mashed potato, rice and beans. I put a little applecider vinegar in their water.

I've been using deep litter method in the coop, so every week or so I pull out the messy straw, add stall-sweet and a fresh top layer of straw. The coop is dry, but the run is a bit muddy.

oh - one of the 4 young hens laid the biggest egg I ve seen, Iknow it was them because it was blue and my older girls lay brown. It had 2 yolks.

I just fed them a treat of a bowl of rhutabaga with oatmeal, hardboiled eggs and chopped garlic. Everyone is perky, everyone is chipper, everyone is eating happily! I heard NO sneezing, and no one seemed to have runny poo (at least not for their early morning "splat" in the run....)

Fingers crossed!

 

[All my hens are roosters]

She could have had a heart attack.

Are your birds outside where a predator bird could get at them? That could factor into a heart attack, although some chickens will just up and die for no apparent reason.

 

[sammi]

I think without a necropsy being done it would be near impossible to know the cause of the hen's death..
just watch the others for any symptoms.

 

[speckledhen]

Read the details in my post here. My Lacy died suddenly, as well, but she was two years old, still young in my book. Dont know if the details match at all, but we did a layman's necropsy on her.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=33876