Dead overnight 9 wk chick, what happened?

ESofVA

Songster
10 Years
May 4, 2012
1,106
39
221
Keller, VA
Last night I sat with my24 chickens, all 7-9weeks old, and fed them their treats of dried mealworms. They have plenty of food and water. I also fed them some leftover cornmeal mix soaked in water, it was left over from dragging squash through it for frying (no grease, no spice, just gluten-free cornmeal mix and water). I have a few of these chicks that I plan to keep and have been giving them extra attention to help tame them...holding them and hand-feeding. He was one of them.
So, anyway, we got up this am and found im dead in the coop. We now have 2 coops in the pen as 1 one just getting too small for all of them.
We skinned him out to look for any internal injuries, we could find none externally. His crop was completely full...will chicks that age die overnight from crop binding??? No worms, no bruises anywhere on his body. All internal organs were fine. Lungs floated in water so they had air.
So what should I think?????
TY
De

OH...he was a light Brahma.
 
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and there were no external injuries, like pecks or bites? Some predators sneak into kill the chickens but don't take them with them. That's the only thing I can think of. Just in case I would double check for openings and the like in your coop where an intruder could get in.
 
Te coop is brand new, my husband built it last month. We skinned him out. No vsible marks outside, no bruising or nicks showing on the inside of the skin or under the skin on the body. Gizzard also had food in it. Could it have just smothered under other chicks??? The lungs did have air in them.
 
I'm not sure, but you should double check, predators can fit in smaller holes than we can and make their own entryways with their claws and teeth. He could have caught the beginning of some kind illness or could've been suffocated after taking a breath in, or he could've been to cold or to hot.
 
TY
no holes
Brand new coops, brand new pen all less than 1 month old. Hubby built/put together all. He is the type person that whatever he does has to be done right or done over. Wire is new and animal proof. Posts set in concrete. No predators in there. Not even a mouse yet!
 
I hate to ask but could it have been a weasel who can get through a hole roughly the size of a thumb and would leave little to no mark on the body they do pierce the skin but it can be a tiny tiny hole and they kill by sucking out the blood then leave the prey so it looks like it just dropped dead. Took over 60 of our young birds in one night many years ago and it looked like theyhad just fallen asleep and never woke up.
 
Not a weasel. As mammalian biologists (hubby PhD...me MS) we know those (have actually worked with weasel as well as others) and what to look for. We know mammals, but not birds. I will just have to write it off as one of those "We just don't know" cases.
Thanks to all with your suggestions!
Debbie
 

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