Last week I had a healthy 1 year old BCM hen die. She was with my other 3 birds in the morning (9 am) grazing happily and by 10 a.m she was dead. They are all very healthy (were) the get along pretty well, fresh food and water many times daily they have a enclosed roost and a separate laying box, I clean the coop regularly. They have not laid in 2 weeks and are loosing feathers (slowly) before this started I would get 4-5 eggs a day out of 4 chickens. I thought they were molting due to the slow loss of feathers neck and breast, and tail feathers mostly; but with the death of a bird I am concerned its more. Can someone please cle me in, I don't want to loose any more of my birds. Thank you
That does sound like molting. I'm so sorry you lost a hen. Did you look her body over real good to see if there was anything that could have caused it? They do sometimes just pass away quickly and you never find out what went wrong. I suspect heart attack or stroke when this happens, or even a freak accident that maybe caused a broken neck or some trama that you can't see. The only thing I would do, just to be safe, is look them over really well and make sure they don't have any parasites like mites or lice. (I'm sure you're very clean with them, but they can get these from wild birds.) I would just keep an eye on the others and watch out for any strange symptoms. Take care and again I'm sorry for your loss, Sharon
Check for mice/lice immediately! If you find them, you'll need to dust them all with Sevin and thoroughly clean out their coop/roosting/dustbathing areas and dust that with Sevin as well (or spray with a bleach/water solution). You can research here for details. If you don't see mice/lice, check back in here. Also, the mice/lice are literally sucking the life out of your birds. You need to give them extra protein and nutrition right away - scrambled eggs, canned cat food, and/or other protein, as well as vitamins and an electrolyte solution in their water supply.
