Chicken suicide

[Aroostertoomany]

Does anyone know why a perfectly healthy normal rooster would just frantically start flying around the coop radically and fly straight into the wire and pretty much kill himself. I lost my rhode island red last night and i cant figure out why he did this. Hes never acted like that before. He was still alive but extremely hurt. He was gasping for air and could not move at all so my husband put him down so he would suffer. Any thoughts?

 

[Luv Ducks]

I would say with certain that something had to have spooked him. Whether he saw a coon or large owl, something would have made him think danger and that he needed to get out of there. That is only my guess but you would think something along that line had to have happened for him to react that way. I am so sorry for your loss.

 

[nuthatched]

A stroke, a neurological events or he saw/heard something terrifying.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Does anyone know why a perfectly healthy normal rooster would just frantically start flying around the coop radically and fly straight into the wire and pretty much kill himself. I lost my rhode island red last night and i cant figure out why he did this. Hes never acted like that before. He was still alive but extremely hurt. He was gasping for air and could not move at all so my husband put him down so he would suffer. Any thoughts?

I'm sorry for your loss.

The only way to find out if it was disease/something of a health issue would be to have a necropsy. If you still have the body, then refrigerate it and call your state lab to make arrangements for analysis. https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

As others have suggested, getting spooked by a predator is a good possibility.
I've had Racoons or even an Owl spook my roosters off their roost. A lot of times you never see that predator since they can fly off or something like Racoons, just slip away and hide.
A game cam set up may help i.d. if there's a problem. I usually have one set up every night just to see what's going on out of view from my normal security cameras. You'd be surprised what you might see.