Chicken Behavior

[Nanamoma]

Hello, my oldest ISA Brown just passed sometime Friday evening into Saturday morning. When I got to the coop she was expired. She was pretty old for an ISA brown and my last living of 8 that I got several years ago. She'd been going down for a couple weeks so I did what I could to make her comfortable etc. Several months back I got some young chicks and I integrated her and them together in the same coop two months ago. They were inseparable and she was definitely the head chicken. They are all free rangers and stayed together during the day and when she went to the coop at night, they followed. She had her favorite perch and no one tried to go there In her last few days she was unable to get on the perch so she got into a nesting box and slept there. Every morning all the chicks would be up scratching around and the roosters would be crowing. The morning she died, I went to the coop a bit earlier than normal to check on her and saw that she'd gone to chicken heaven. None of the other chickens had gotten down off the perches, not one, and as I mentioned above they have always been down doing what chickens do. My question is, finally, does anyone have any inclination as to why all the chickens were still on their perches? I know chickens are just birds with minimal thinking skills, mainly eat, drink and survive, but why were they still on their perches? How'd they know she'd passed? It's as though they were in mourning. Just a crazy question from a chicken lady who loves her chicks.

 

[igorsMistress]

Hello, my oldest ISA Brown just passed sometime Friday evening into Saturday morning. When I got to the coop she was expired. She was pretty old for an ISA brown and my last living of 8 that I got several years ago. She'd been going down for a couple weeks so I did what I could to make her comfortable etc. Several months back I got some young chicks and I integrated her and them together in the same coop two months ago. They were inseparable and she was definitely the head chicken. They are all free rangers and stayed together during the day and when she went to the coop at night, they followed. She had her favorite perch and no one tried to go there In her last few days she was unable to get on the perch so she got into a nesting box and slept there. Every morning all the chicks would be up scratching around and the roosters would be crowing. The morning she died, I went to the coop a bit earlier than normal to check on her and saw that she'd gone to chicken heaven. None of the other chickens had gotten down off the perches, not one, and as I mentioned above they have always been down doing what chickens do. My question is, finally, does anyone have any inclination as to why all the chickens were still on their perches? I know chickens are just birds with minimal thinking skills, mainly eat, drink and survive, but why were they still on their perches? How'd they know she'd passed? It's as though they were in mourning. Just a crazy question from a chicken lady who loves her chicks.

I’m sorry for your loss, it can be hard for sure.

While chickens are small, therefore their brains as well, it is proven that they recognize other flock members, and in my experience they do seem to mourn a bit when one passes. I lost two girls this week to heat; the whole crew has been very subdued since. As for your flock not being in the dirt doing chicken things, it is getting light later each morning and my crew is definitely coming out later than they did even last week. So it could be that or they could have been waiting for your older gal to get up and lead.

 

[Nanamoma]

Ohh, I'm sorry for your loss as well. Thank you for taking the time to respond. All the chicks are back to normal now. I sure miss my old girl :-(