Chickens going crazy and killing themselves

[BGcoop]

I agree, this sounds like an ingestion of something, especially since it took all your birds.

 

[Al Capon]

It's unfortunate. I feel very bad my babes had to suffer, but hadn't suspected until it was too late. But my suspicion is on the feed.

But I wanted to ask here and see if there was possibly something else like some sort of parasite that could cause it or a virus and if I needed to worry about it being inside the pen and infecting any new ones that I have in the future.

Do you by chance have a neighbor whom you've squabbled with or objects to you having chickens in the first place?

 

[starri33]

it's something they all ate in common, did you have any neighbors that didn't like you having chickens? your feed is more than likely the problem, as far as your coop, you can clean it out, you can dig down about 2 inches in the run and fill that with clean sand or dirt from somewhere else on your property or buy some all purpose sand from Home Depot or something. Have you used any chemicals out in the yard?

 

[ChickenSuicideEmergency]

Do you by chance have a neighbor whom you've squabbled with or objects to you having chickens in the first place?

No. Country home.

 

[ChickenSuicideEmergency]

it's something they all ate in common, did you have any neighbors that didn't like you having chickens? your feed is more than likely the problem, as far as your coop, you can clean it out, you can dig down about 2 inches in the run and fill that with clean sand or dirt from somewhere else on your property or buy some all purpose sand from Home Depot or something. Have you used any chemicals out in the yard?

No chemicals.

 

[ChickenSuicideEmergency]

I hope that it is something like feed contamination rather than a virus or a parasite. Virus or parasites are my biggest fear.

Just a shame and serious disappointment to go through raising them and caring for them as carefully as possible and then to lose them so quick and being unable to stop it.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

We're these birds flighty to begin with? Any chance a predator has been sniffing about making them more on alert? I have seen frightened birds fly and flap about until they hit hard enough to break their necks. Just a thought. I cannot imagine losing them all. I don't know any viruses or diseases that would cause what you are describing.

 

[cmom]

It appears maybe something or someone gave them some poison. I put some rat poison in one of my coops where I thought only the rats could get at it but the rats had carried bits of the poisoning out into the pen and several birds apparently ate some of the rat poison and did the same thing. Just a guess. It was a hard lesson learned.

 

[Matieus27]

There is apparently some stuff called crazy dust my work pays a company that comes out and puts it on corn around the yard for the pigeons to eat it and it makes them do crazy stuff maybe something similar to that

 

[ShannonR]

Woah! This is a puzzler, definitely. Chickens tend to not get rabies, and an entire flock being diseased like that is extremely unlikely, I would think. I'm agreeing with the feed contamination or poisoning theory myself. Ergot from the feed?

What have you done lately that is a change, or different? Please think of anything possible, however minor it may be. Did you recently paint the coop, perhaps? Switch feed brands, or buy a new container to hold feed? Perhaps you have been working on a home renovation and it has nothing to do with the coop. Sometimes the answer lies in the most tiny, mundane details.