Confused, chicken suddenly died

[Hanetreetjie]

Would appreciate any opinions...

Had a perfectly healthy, as far as we know, light Sussex hen suddenly die this morning. There was a bit of a commotion in the coop this morning and when we went to open up, she was sitting breathing heavily and gasping for air. Her comb was very dark and 15 minutes later she died

She hadn't been acting strange or showing any symptoms leading up to this morning. Laid an egg yesterday, ate and free ranged with the rest as usual and roosted with the rest last night.

She didn't have any discharge from her mouth, nostrils or eyes and normal poop. No coughing or wheezing other than suddenly this morning. We did check her after she passed, couldn't see anything out of the ordinary down her throat. Checked her crop, it felt empty-ish, not hard or swollen. Abdomen felt normal too.

We are really confused. We have 2 broody hens sitting on eggs for the last week, could it be stress due to fighting with the change in pecking order?

One thing we are realizing as first time chicken keepers is that when you care about your animals, chicken keeping isn't for sissies.

 

[mightymax]

No kidding. The faint of heart need not apply !!! I'm sorry to hear about your hen. Could she have possibly been eggbound? With nothing more to go on, I don't really have any answers for you but you do have any sincerest condolences.

 

[Wyandottes7]

Its possible that she just had a heart attack. Some birds will just die, and you won't know what happened to them. I know of two birds that were fine one morning, and then 30 minutes later, were dead.

Sorry for your loss.

I'm sure she had a good life.

 

[Hanetreetjie]

Thanks for the replies and condolences.

We have only had the chickens for about 8 weeks and already got very attached so it is very sad and worrying. Hope the rest of the girls will be ok. With no symptoms of any kind, in a sad way, I hope you are right Wyandottes7, because then the other girls should be ok.