Dead hen.... no signs of predator or stress.

[Mesa]

I had my son feed the chickens yesterday and everything seemed fine. Today I sent him out again and he came running back in and told me "fire up the grill, it looks like we have a dead chicken!" (he was really shaken and he was trying to make a joke to keep from crying... bless his heart.) Anyways I went out and sure enough one of my year old hens was dead in the coop. She was just on the floor near the door.
I'm not sure if she's been laying or not since I had 7 hens and I cant tell who's been laying which eggs. The free range and none have acted weird. Everyone was eating and drinking normally saturday pm when I was out watching the chickens....
no signs of thrashing, stress or blood. She was laying down when she died because her feet were tucked up underneath her.

What are the possibilities here? I'm scared all my chickens are going to die. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[briteday]

Our neighbor just had the same thing happen last week. He wanted to see if he could find any reason so he cut the dead bird open and found that she was severely egg bound. The hen didn't have any symptoms, was eating, acting normally.

 

[Mesa]

I am wondering if she was indeed eggbound. I've been collecting 5-6 eggs daily and I have 7 hens and was getting 6-7 eggs a day for a couple months.

I just cannot bring myself to cut her open. I feel like an idiot about it too....

 

[Linda Gail]

I had the exact same thing happen just today! I could have posted the same question! What is "eggbound"? Is it a stuck egg?
Linda from North Ga. Mountains

 

[briteday]

Sometimes there is just one egg stuck in the vent but sometimes there are multiple eggs in there. If the hen can't pass the egg(s) then they die from the infection caused by the eggs rotting or they get cut up inside from the shards of the shell as it gets crushed by pressing on bones and such.

 

[heyeddah]

Sunday Am I found my girl flat out dead on the floor too. I think she fell off her roost and broke her neck. Someone else suggested she had a heart attack and dropped off her roost. As a side note, the weather here wet from 20 degrees at night to 70 degrees during the day for two straight days and now back into the 30s. Could a bird's system react to temperature change that drastic by having a death episode?
And sorry you all lost one too. It is so frustrating to hatch, feed, raise,protect, get to egg laying and blam lose them to freak occurence

 

[Mesa]

Same here! The weather here went from freezing, to 70's.. and then back to freezing.