Easter egger found dead...

[mags2009]

Yesterday my husband went out in the afternoon to collect the eggs, and one of our 3 easter eggers was dead in the nestbox, just sitting there, dead. He didn''t even know it was dead at first, and tried to "shoo" her out to get the egg, and then she slumped over. After checking her out thoroughly, there wasn't a spot or scratch on her. It was if she was trying to lay her egg and just died. Out of our 3 easter eggers we only had 2 that laid green eggs, the other brown, and hers was olive-colored. We are devastated. She was very sweet. Does anyone have ANY idea what could have happened to her?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Heart attack?

 

[Dora'smom]

Maybe her heart if she was pushing hard to get an egg out. I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what it would be like to find one of ours like that.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Could she have been egg bound? I'm so sorry.

 

[Mahonri]

I'm guessing that she was either egg bound or had a heart attack. It happens.

I've had hens just fall right of the roost dead as can be and I find them dead under the roost. At least 3 have died that way for me.

 

[KirstenRichter]

How terrible. I am so sorry for your loss. I hope your other hens are going to be okay- give them extra love.

 

[gckiddhouse]

We had a hen die recently. We found her before she died. She was suffocating. We think she had a respiratory disease. Anyway, if we had come out 15 minutes later, she too would have been laying there dead for seemingly no reason. I did some research and then went out to observe my flock. The rest of them were shaking their heads. Chickens do this a lot, so unless I had just lost a bird and read about it I would not have noticed. They were all doing it and doing it quite a bit.

I checked around and discovered that their water dish was leaking into the hay we had put in the coop to keep them warm. It was all moldy under the dish. I pulled out all the hay, put a little sulmet in their water and in a couple days they had all stopped shaking their heads so much.

Just my experience, but something to think about. Look into respiratory diseases. You won't be able to diagnose them with anything, but you can learn about indicative behaviors to watch for.

Sorry about your loss. Ours was also one of our favorite EEs. So sweet. Unfortunately, just a few weeks later a pack of coyotes dug a big hole under the chicken yard and got all of them but 4. Between predators and diseases, you can't win for losing.

So sorry.