- Apr 24, 2020
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All - apologies is there is a thread on this, but I am too traumatized to even look.
I was on vacation and had folks stop by each day to check on the chickens - water, food, and collect eggs. Yesterday I looked on the chickenCam and saw a chicken (partially in frame) that wasn't moving. I caught my son-in-law to stop by and check and see if there was a sick chicken and he discovered 2 dead chickens in the coop. He didn't have much time - he was heading out to a wedding - so he just disposed of the 2 dead chickens and didn't look in the run to check on the other chickens.
A few hours later, my friend came to check for eggs and she saw 4 hens with their faces pecked off and one looks like she had no head! My friend was hysterical and couldn't even go out and separate the healthy hens. I was able to get my daughter (police officer) to drive an hour to our house and she ended up euthanizing 6 hens who had no eyes or beaks. (I also called all who collected eggs to NOT eat the eggs in case there is some illness issue).
Our 4 young hens who just started laying a month ago, all seem to be fine. we weren't sure if there was some contamination in the coop where the dead chickens were and there was some blood in nesting boxes. So she locked the healthy hens out in the run (which is completely secure with hardware cloth) where they have food and water until I could get home.
I got home today and the 4 young hens appear to be perfectly fine. But now I don't know what to do?
Should I throughly clean the coop and run? Does anyone think this was an illness - or did one hen get a hurt, start bleeding, and set off the whole brood to peck each other to oblivion?
This was / is beyond traumatic. I was not able to get photos - nor did I want to see any, but I did get a screenshot from the chickenCam of the hen without a face/head. Hard to tell, but attached is the screenshot and a photo of Hoodlum when she was healthy.
Open to any suggestions to keep my 4 babies healthy.
Cheers!
Ginger
I was on vacation and had folks stop by each day to check on the chickens - water, food, and collect eggs. Yesterday I looked on the chickenCam and saw a chicken (partially in frame) that wasn't moving. I caught my son-in-law to stop by and check and see if there was a sick chicken and he discovered 2 dead chickens in the coop. He didn't have much time - he was heading out to a wedding - so he just disposed of the 2 dead chickens and didn't look in the run to check on the other chickens.
A few hours later, my friend came to check for eggs and she saw 4 hens with their faces pecked off and one looks like she had no head! My friend was hysterical and couldn't even go out and separate the healthy hens. I was able to get my daughter (police officer) to drive an hour to our house and she ended up euthanizing 6 hens who had no eyes or beaks. (I also called all who collected eggs to NOT eat the eggs in case there is some illness issue).
Our 4 young hens who just started laying a month ago, all seem to be fine. we weren't sure if there was some contamination in the coop where the dead chickens were and there was some blood in nesting boxes. So she locked the healthy hens out in the run (which is completely secure with hardware cloth) where they have food and water until I could get home.
I got home today and the 4 young hens appear to be perfectly fine. But now I don't know what to do?
Should I throughly clean the coop and run? Does anyone think this was an illness - or did one hen get a hurt, start bleeding, and set off the whole brood to peck each other to oblivion?
This was / is beyond traumatic. I was not able to get photos - nor did I want to see any, but I did get a screenshot from the chickenCam of the hen without a face/head. Hard to tell, but attached is the screenshot and a photo of Hoodlum when she was healthy.
Open to any suggestions to keep my 4 babies healthy.
Cheers!
Ginger
