Also this was an interesting find too... My coops are well ventilated btw, but when I was cleaning out the chicks coop yesterday I kept noticing these little bits of ripped paper, not sure what it was too, but I think my 3 year old niece maybe was putting it in there, perhaps the silkie ate that paper or something and choked or it blocked her system..
I have issues with mice bringing in/shredding paper for nests... they will go for almost anything, paper towel, napkins feed bag tags and sometimes move it quite far from the paper source. Before you get too set on the niece idea, though that could also be the culprit.