Could she have had a heart attack?

[volchick]

I had a hen that died last night. Yesterday she was fine until the late afternoon when my 6yo accidentally got her wet with the waterhose. She didn't want to move after that and my dd put her in her wagon with some food. She tucked her head under her wing and wouldn't respond to anything anyone did. My dh then tried to put her up on the coop perch and she fell off and went into one of the hen boxes. He said she pooped in the wagon and it was bright lime green. When I checked on her last night she had her feathers ruffed up and seemed cold so I tucked lots of shavings in around her and she seemed to settle. This morning she was dead under the perch.

She hasn't been laying but I figured that was because she was in molt. We just got her in the spring. This has been our first excursion with chickens so we don't know that much, but the people we bought her from said she was at point of lay. I'm not sure what kind she was... we thought maybe a buff orpington, but she was little, smaller than my red star, and I thought orpingtons were big.

I'd say that maybe the cold water from the hose was such a shock that she had a heart attack or something, but I don't know because then she had that strange poo...

 

[volchick]

bump... Any thoughts?

 

[gettinaclue]

I have no idea. My 5 yr old son found my white Jersey Giant in the coop dead last week. She was fine that morning. He came home from school and she was on the floor of the coop. DH went out and got her and she was already stiff. We have no idea what happened to her. We think she had a heart attack as well.

I'm really sorry about your chicken. I hope you find out what happened.

 

[Imp]

It kind of seems unlikely that the hose would cause the death, but stranger things have happened.
Let me say I have no experience diagnosing diasease in chickens, just read a lot. The lethargy, puffed up, droppings and sudden death lead me towards disease rather than heart attack. Watch the rest closely.

Here's a little info:

http://www.welphatchery.com/poultry_health.asp

http://www.colchesterpoultryclub.com/health.htm

http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

Good luck

Imp

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Yes, chickens can have heart attacks from being stressed.

 

[azygous]

My first thought would be that her death immediately following the dowsing by the hose was purely coincidental, and you certainly shouldn't blame it for her death. Chickens get rained on all the time and suffer no ill effects.

Her lime-green poop signifies she hasn't been eating in a long while, that she had only bile in her intestines.

It could have been a mounting infection of some sort, maybe her first egg was backed up, and that was what killed her. Not a small girl with a wild hose.

 

[volchick]

I was hoping it wasn't disease, but I guess if it was I can say that at least I don't have many left to lose... We had a flock of 10; then a few weeks ago the neighbor girl came over to play with my dd. After she left I was about to go out and close the chicken coop, but I looked through the kitchen window and saw that my dd had already closed them up. The next morning I went to let them out, opened the back door, and lo and behold, there were four chickens huddled on the back porch! I went to see if the others were in the coop and there was my one "early to bed" girl all alone on the perch. I asked dd about it and found out that apparently the neighbor girl had shut everyone out (she admitted this later). Argh! I have told them time and time again to leave my very chickens and their coop alone. So, I go around looking for the five missing kiddos and find wads of feathers all around our field. Guess the coyotes had an awesome dinner that night... Ugh... got my broody, too. So as of today I have only 2 roos and 2 hens. And I really need to ax one of the roos...

 

[volchick]

Quote:
That's what my dh said as well. The only reason I thought it might have been that was because the hose water was freezing cold.

Quote:
I've read that, too but it's odd because I've watched her eating, she'd even eaten from my hand earlier that day...

I guess I'm trying not to think that it was because of some kind of disease, but maybe she wasn't molting and was just looking like that because she was sick...