Dead Hen...WHY?!?!?!???

[eggcamefirst]

I had a just-turned 2 year-old Buff Orpington die on me during the night. No signs of stress, she put her self to bed last night just fine. When I went to open the pull door she was laying on the bottom stone cold dead! There were no signs of entry, the other 3 chickens emerged just fine. Looked over the body and found no signs of any disease or puncture wounds, she looked like she was just sleeping. The chickens are enclosed in a run/coop with sand at the bottom. I was curious about a few things:

1) How many of you regularly clean out the run (rake the sand, remove waste etc..)
2) I have a metal waterer that has some rust spots...could that have made her sick?

I realize sometimes chickens die for no apparent reason, but was wondering if there was something that I wasn't doing that may have contributed. Moreover, I have 7 baby chicks (4 days old) inside in a brooder. I want to make sure that when it's time, I can safely move them into the coop/run and remove the old birds to a new location.

Thanks!!

 

[casportpony]

Sorry for your loss. You should send her off for a necropsy, it's only $15 in North Carolina and they might let you use their FedEx account number like California does.

If you decide to send her, refrigerate, do not freeze.

http://www.ncagr.gov/vet/ncvdl/FeeBrochure.pdf

 

[graciesmum]

I have sand and I rake and clean it out everyday, also I use plastic water and feed stuff, ad I use acv in there water, sorry for your loss

 

[realsis]

hi I'm so very sorry about your loss! I could not begin to even guess why because it could be so many different reasons . as for cleaning the coop every morning I clean the top part of the shavings to get the nightly droppings picked up then I add a small amount of fresh litter. I change the water every morning and rinse out the waterer. I check and add fresh food to the feeder daily. I check the treat bowl that I give the treats in and clean it too. that's what I do in the morning. as for rust in the waterer I would change it out if I were you. I don't think rust is good. algae is defiantly not good and can cause poisoning. I hope this helps in some small way. if you really want to know what happened to your bird you can do a neucropsey (I spelled that wrong) and look inside and see if anything is appearing to be wrong. or you can send her off to have one done. I'm afraid that's the only way you can know for sure what happened. was she displaying any symptoms at all before her death? anything at all that you noticed? was she still laying? any little thing you can think of that was different or unusual? again I'm so very sorry about your hen and wish I could be of more help but without any symptoms I couldn't begin to even guess what the cause was. again I'm sorry.

 

[chooks4life]

Cleaning out litter too often can cause problems. I found when I was most diligent with that, I lost more hens. So I did research into deep litter composting, and apparently it acts as an immunizer for the chickens, as long as it's healthy, and the longer it's left the healthier it is in general. I couldn't keep the shallow and constantly cleaned out pen smelling fine, but once I left it to compost, it stopped having any bad smells and the chickens stopped getting sick. I lime and charcoal every now and then, and maybe clean out the excess once a year to garden with. Once you've got healthy compost going it breaks down all the new stuff and is valuable; if you put a bit of that through a new coop's soil it'll act like the leaven in the bread, the good bacteria, mycorrhiza and flora/fauna overwhelm the bad. There's also a good fungi that becomes present which they can actually eat, high in B vitamins, etc. As bizarre as that sounds. I'm trying to remember the source... Some american composting-fan scientist. He did a bunch of studies including some on chooks. My experiences have confirmed his findings, to me personally. Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

I know those who think severe disease is best dealt with via avoidance will disagree, but it's done wonders for my flock, and if they can't overcome something naturally, they're too weak. Interestingly, they aren't; unless you're too clean and don't let them build up immunities, and over the years and generations stronger genetic strains. This isn't do-able for those who practice an all-in all-out method, obviously. But in my experience, too much disinfection of unnecessary sorts is a huge troublemaker. They'll never get tough if you don't give them a chance. It's like the new info on raising babies saying we need to encounter dirt and animals and all sorts of bacteria or we don't grow proper immune defences; a few years ago mothers got lambasted for letting their children play in the dirt, but once again, science does a complete about-face...

 

[seminolewind]

She could have eaten the wrong thing. I had 2 that dropped dead overnight, and I've always thought it was a dead mouse 3 days old in a mouse trap that I forgot to pick up. That's the only reason there was. Could be a plant as well.