Daughter found chicken dead in run this morning

[tweetzone86]

Hey. My 9 year old found one of our hens dead in the run this morning. There are no obvious signs of injury that I can see. We have been cleaning out the run as we're selling our house and had put them in a temporary pen to eat dandelions and such, and one of them got out the other day (all same breed, can't tell them apart) and I caught her coming from the direction where we keep bug poison in a lean-to behind our shed. There is also the possibility that maybe a poisonous spider bit her? Or she ate some rhubarb leaves in my yard? Or another poisonous plant?

Either way, I can't afford a necropsy right now. The other chickens look totally fine. Should I find a way to do the $150 plus mailing fee for the necropsy, or should we just bury her and keep a close eye on the rest in the next few days?

Poor baby I really wish I had found her first, not my child

 

[Ebony Rose]

Have you considered doing your own necropsy? If you have processed any of your chickens for meat in the past, you will find the process more thorough but with may common elements. Posting a youtube video of someone doing a necropsy of a chicken WARNING: GRAPHIC.

 

[Wezdin]

Is the poison accessible to the chicken? if so then i am thinking that is what happened. Sorry for your loss

 

[tweetzone86]

Is the poison accessible to the chicken? if so then i am thinking that is what happened. Sorry for your loss

Normally no, but we have to clean out our run completely before closing (selling our house new owners want it gone) and we had put them in a temporary pen last Saturday and one of them (again, not 100% sure it was her but now I'm thinking so) got out and I found her coming out from the direction where the lean-to with weed and feed and Ortho Home Defense are stored.

 

[tweetzone86]

Have you considered doing your own necropsy? If you have processed any of your chickens for meat in the past, you will find the process more thorough but with may common elements. Posting a youtube video of someone doing a necropsy of a chicken WARNING: GRAPHIC.

I have not. This is our first flock and it's an egg flock, as we're still in suburbia until mid-June when we get our acreage property.

 

[Eggcessive]

How old was she? Could she get to the poison, or was it contained? I would do a necropsy at home, to look at her organs and abdomen. Take and post pictures of the liver, the intestines, and abdominal contents. Open the crop and gizzard to see what the contents look like. It is a great learning experience to share pictures here, and try to figure out what happened. Many things may be obvious in the necropsy, such as internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis, fatty liver disease with a hemorrhage, and oviduct cancer. Crop or gizzard blockages may also show up. Very sorry for your loss. Keep the body cool until you can do the necropsy. Here are 2 links that might help you:
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/A visual guide to a chicken necropsy.pdf

https://thepoultrysite.com/articles/poultry-necropsy-basics

 

[tweetzone86]

How old was she? Could she get to the poison, or was it contained? I would do a necropsy at home, to look at her organs and abdomen. Take and post pictures of the liver, the intestines, and abdominal contents. Open the crop and gizzard to see what the contents look like. It is a great learning experience to share pictures here, and try to figure out what happened. Many things may be obvious in the necropsy, such as internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis, fatty liver disease with a hemorrhage, and oviduct cancer. Crop or gizzard blockages may also show up. Very sorry for your loss. Keep the body cool until you can do the necropsy. Here are 2 links that might help you:
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/A visual guide to a chicken necropsy.pdf

https://thepoultrysite.com/articles/poultry-necropsy-basics

She was supposed to be contained, but she got out of our temporary pen and was spotted walking out from where we had both weed and feed and pesticide stored. The pesticide is technically in a plastic jug, BUT it has a spray nozzle and a flexible tube on it and I will go out and check both for damage to see if she got into it. We also have spiders in that area, some pretty good size ones for this area, so I am also thinking that perhaps she got bitten by a black widow or some other poisonous spider or she tried to eat one and it bit her.

As to the necropsy, I have no idea how long she was out there, other than she must have died late yesterday or very early this morning. Her body was cold as in not living, but it wasn't cold (if that makes sense-she was definitely matching the 60 degree air temps). I am not sure I wish to necropsy her myself, both due to inexperience and also due to if she did eat poison then I don't want to expose myself to it, and my girls are heartbroken (9 and 7). Maybe when we've had more than one flock and butchered meat chickens and they're more used to farm animal death (intentional or otherwise) I will feel more up to the task of doing a necropsy.

But right now, my poor girls have been sobbing uncontrollably off and on all morning (I homeschool), and I am not sure I want to subject them to it when it's only the second death (first one she ate 3 screws and an open safety pin and we had to put her down, but as she'd been acting unwell for a day before we took her to the vet it was painful but not a shock like today's was) we've had in our chickens and these are the first animals we've ever owned.

I think my girls need more experience with animal life cycles on the farm (we're buying 5 acres closing June 11) and I need more experience butchering chickens that aren't sick for meat processing to see what's normal and what's not, before I attempt a necropsy on my own.

 

[Bettyboop7499]

I think this one you should just do a nice peaceful service for your upset girls. If you already have the new land you could pick a nice spot there to put her so she goes with you to the new place...if possible. Sorry for the loss.

 

[tweetzone86]

We close on the land June 11. If she did get into poison I don't want to risk another animal-coyote or dog or what-have-you-digging her body up and eating it and getting poisoned too.

So my girls said goodbye to her, and I bagged her up and put her in our trash can so that other animals stay safe. If it was clear that another animal had attacked her, I would have done a funeral in the backyard and buried her, but with possible poison exposure I am not going to take that risk.

On a side note- is it possible a cat could have gotten her but it wouldn't have been obvious? I would think that would involve bleeding and mussed up feathers.

 

[Kathy Golla]

I feel for you. A dead hen is traumatic.
It could be a million things. Was this hen young?
She would have to eat a ton of weed and feed. You would see where she had gotten into the bag.

I’m sure she couldn’t get to the pesticide if it was in a plastic jug.

My other thought besides getting into something poisonous when she was outside the run, was there was something inside the temp run. Was it only her in there (temp run)? For how long? Had someone sprayed something in there?

My other thought is foreign objects in the gizzard, a mass of fibrous plant matter, or lead or copper poisoning, but things like that wouldn’t have killed her right away.
Sorry for your loss..