Found Chicken Dead Today?!

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rebrascora said:
I can almost guarantee mites are not killing your birds. Mites live in the coop and crawl onto the chickens at night to suck their blood. Blood loss is small even with a large infestation and whilst it will make a chicken weak and prone to other illnesses, they will not just die suddenly from blood loss overnight. You would see signs of the chickens becoming weak and looking sick for several days before they die. Whilst it is important to keep on top of problems like mites and lice, particularly when your coop is overcrowded, I'm afraid you still need to address the overcrowding issue, before nature does it for you....as she seems to be doing!
You will also need to retreat the coop for mites in 7-10 days to kill the larvae that will hatch out from unaffected eggs, during that time.

The product you are talking about is not ground oyster shell but Diatomaceous Earth (DE for short) Oyster shell is calcium and used to improve egg shell quality, DE is silica from the fossils of microscopic creatures that died millions of years ago. You are pretty much correct about how it works though. Many people feel that DE is not nearly as beneficial as it is marketed to be (some even use the phrase totally useless) and has health risks from inhalation both by humans and chickens. I have had some success with it, but you have to be prepared to use it in conjunction with other products.
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Well thing is i have never had chickens before i know nothing about them but whilst treating them with dust i noticed tons of them under the poor chickens wings i do not know how long they have had them i can say the first time i saw the mites i thought it was dirt on the doors of the coop and that was several months ago 2-3 to be exact and to deal with the over crowding i have started letting them out in the morning and putting them up at night the rooster didnt like that plan to much and tried his best to get back into the coop but once they got used to it they seemed very happy and found a spot to dust bath and i plan on another treatment for them next Wednesday which will be exactly 1 week after the first one. But i do not know if they are getting weak or even how they look like they are but if we do lose more chickens i plan to take them to the local vet to have a necropsy done to find out what could possibly be the cause. But as far as the mites killing them i have found several posts that said mites can kill them very slowly and very painfully.
 
So pleased to hear you are giving them some free range time. It is always a trade off against loss to predators but at least it gives them some quality of life. I appreciate you are new to chicken keeping and on a steep learning curve at the moment. Improving your knowledge and learning from your mistakes is a big part of animal husbandry, as it is life in general. BYC is a mine of fantastic information and a wonderful resource, but spending time watching your chickens will also help you to learn which ones are healthy and happy and which ones are ailing. Having all one breed does make that more difficult because it is hard to tell one bird from another. You mentioned before that you would be unable to tell if a bird was lame.... surely you can see if one is limping or lying down a lot. Look for birds that are not acting like the others. Sitting hunched in a corner, not coming over for treats, looking pale in the face.
I'm really surprised if your mite infestation was so bad, that you could not feel them crawling on your skin when you were cleaning the coop. That is certainly the trigger for me. You need to check regularly in the summer in the cracks and crevices of the coop and at the ends of the roost bars for them. Always be on the look out for clusters of dark red particles and if you squash them and there is a smear of blood, you have mites and need to treat.
Good luck with your remaining flock
 
rebrascora said:
So pleased to hear you are giving them some free range time. It is always a trade off against loss to predators but at least it gives them some quality of life. I appreciate you are new to chicken keeping and on a steep learning curve at the moment. Improving your knowledge and learning from your mistakes is a big part of animal husbandry, as it is life in general. BYC is a mine of fantastic information and a wonderful resource, but spending time watching your chickens will also help you to learn which ones are healthy and happy and which ones are ailing. Having all one breed does make that more difficult because it is hard to tell one bird from another. You mentioned before that you would be unable to tell if a bird was lame.... surely you can see if one is limping or lying down a lot. Look for birds that are not acting like the others. Sitting hunched in a corner, not coming over for treats, looking pale in the face.
I'm really surprised if your mite infestation was so bad, that you could not feel them crawling on your skin when you were cleaning the coop. That is certainly the trigger for me. You need to check regularly in the summer in the cracks and crevices of the coop and at the ends of the roost bars for them. Always be on the look out for clusters of dark red particles and if you squash them and there is a smear of blood, you have mites and need to treat.
Good luck with your remaining flock
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Well i had seen the mites at first but i thought it was dirt on the coop and never really thought anything about it then a while later i felt them crawling on me around when the first chicken died but never thought something so small could kill a chicken. So again it all comes back to the learning curve for me i guess its kind of trial and error. See i honestly never even wanted them because as it is i have a house and yard to keep up with on top of that taking care of my father whom is 65 retired military with stage 4 COPD. So i didn't want them to add onto my burdens that i have to deal with every day but i must also admit yesterday holding the rooster and petting him felt good and he seemed to love it hes very mild tempered compared to others at least from videos i have seen of other roosters. But i have started treatment of them yesterday with some dust/powder that i bought along with a spray and gave them a metal round pan filled with sand and put it in their coop so they can dust bath while in the coop. So i am hoping and thinking that with a little time the problem should be taken care of and no none of them looked weak or laid around they were all usually pretty hyper when they see me coming because they know its time for the feeder to be filled up. But also living in the country feeling bugs crawling on me is a usual so i never really thought of it i guess.
 
I would keep a good eye on their poop as well. It might be another clue as to what's happening with them. I have never heard of mites causing death, but I am learning too. Either way you have to get rid of them. My girls will always leave as soon as I open the coop in the morning and explore everywhere. My rooster will never leave the chicken yard. I wonder if the roosters feel like they need to stay and protect the house. Funny little guys.
 
So figured i would give an update because i know it has been awhile but all my chickens are doing great and some have recently started laying eggs first it was one egg for about 4-5 days then 2 yesterday was 3 i woke up this morning to let them out and low and behold 5 eggs all in the same nesting area. Found out it was indeed the mites that were killing them but since exterminating the problem they are all happy and healthy and every time i walk outside they all flock to me. The rooster has started mating with them i have seen him do this a few times but he doesn't seem to hurt them at all so im not to worried about him and he just recently started crowing lol. But again thank you all for your help and input. I also have bought another waterer for them and i leave it outside their coop and they have one inside as well So nothing else to report other than very happy birds. Oh and one has apparently become a put she follows me everywhere when i am outside and loves me to pick her up and also loves me to scratch between her wings on her back ROFL. I named her princess.
 
black_dove2 said:
What a sight that must have been! Funny how entertaining they are and can brighten one's day
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Well they finally started laying eggs 1 at a time like a day between each so far im up to 8 eggs a day i have 11 chickens lol but i got an egg yesterday the size of a golf ball and a half i was told its probably a double yoker all i can say is WOW that poor chicken that egg fits perfectly in the palm of my hand and i dont have small hands.
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