Dead rooster in closed coop

B2B family farm

In the Brooder
Jan 10, 2016
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Hello, I found my main rooster Boss dead tonight. My birds are closed in the barn for the winter sharing 2 stalls that have chicken wire on top so they don't fly out and nothing gets in. I have 48 hens and had 3 roosters. Boss was the best rooster to the flock but a little mean to us. I liked him. I have no clue what happened he was laying there, blood all over his head and neck (seems to come from his comb) and his neck felt broken (very soft in one spot). Blood was on some walls of the large coop. Even in the other stall than the one where we found him in. There was no blood on the other roosters. Three hens had blood all over their feathers but no wounds. We didn't see any animal tracks or anything else anywhere. All of them were together this way since July (outside is egg mobile) and they all were fine. We put them in about a mo tj ago due to weather and all was working great, no fights and no blood ever. Could the other roosters have done it? They were scared of him and they had no blood on them. I am out of ideas and I am pretty sad about this. Thank you for any input.
 
First off I am very sorry!! It's hard loosing chickens, I just lost one the other day:(

But the only thing I can think of is something startled him and he flew up against the side of the stall very fast and broke his neck and then (keep in mind a chicken with his head cut off) he was scared and ran all over the coop-getting the girls bloody. It sounds crazy but it's the best I can come up with.
 
Occasionally a chicken will get frightened enough to fly up and into a wall or hard object and break the neck, a few years ago I had a turkey and a muscovy duck get into a fight the somehow broke the neck of an older hen who was in the way, I was standing near and saw it happened. As far as the blood, poultry will often jump on or attack a dead or dying flock mate and sometimes cannibalize them. You probably will never know exactly what happened but it was probably just a freak occurrence.
 
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Thank you for your input. You might be right and I am hoping that when I come there in the morning I won't find more dead birds :-(
 

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