heat stroke?

[mamahubb]

Yesterday morning when I left out I had 11 chickens. When I came home 2 were dead and had had their heads eaten, this morning when I went out to let them out of the coop, 5 more are dead and have obviously been eaten by the remaining 4. My chickens are a little under 2 months old. I am in GA and our temps are staying up around the mid 90's right now. I'm pretty sure my coop has plenty of ventilation and it is up off the ground so critters can't get in there. The entire front 1/2 of the coop is wire and the roof has air vents as well as the back sides lift up to have more air passing through. I'm at a loss as this is my first time EVER having chickens and I don't know what is going on. I don't know if the remaining 4 chickens are killing the others (I sort of doubt this, but I do know it can happen, it just seems like too many too fast) or if they have some kind of sickness, or if it is the heat. If they are sick, they now all have it since the live birds have eaten all the dead birds. We have fed them the medicated chick feed. I've done everything according to the books and the only conclusion I can come to would be the heat, but they only seem to die in the coop. HELP!!!!

Thanks!
Sarah

 

[tulie13]

How large are the openings in your wire? Raccoons can reach in and grab chickens by the head and rip them off. They also don't always worry about "eating what they kill" and can rampage through a flock pretty quickly...

If your openings are standard 1" chicken wire hex or larger, a raccoon seems the likely culprit. To keep out raccoons, you need the smaller hardware cloth.

Can you post pictures of your coop?

Edited to add: These deaths are occurring in the daytime? Raccoons are generally nocturnal. Maybe someone else has some more/better ideas.

 

[mamahubb]

There is only one small section which is chicken wire that we could cover with hardware cloth, the rest is covered in hardware cloth for the reason of keeping the critters out... It is only chicken wire because we haven't put the door on yet for the nesting box. They are dying at night though and they are without heads and we do have raccoons, so we will definitely fix that today. I don't know how to post a photo of my coop on here as I'm new to this forum are there instructions somewhere? My kids are absolutely going to be devastated. They aren't home right now and they were soooo upset yesterday about the 2 and now we've lost 5 more makes me so sad.

 

[mamahubb]

Here's my coop... I figured it out. It's about 1 1/2 ft off the ground too which you can't really see in this photo. I think it's 16ftx14ftx4ft

 

[tulie13]

That looks pretty tight... I don't think raccoon or other predator unless they could lift the back sides up? Perhaps heat stress caused them to go cannibal? Sorry I can't be of more help, I have no idea.

 

[007Dawn]

If it it heat someone on here had taken a small plastic garbage can and placed ice packs that you use for camping inside and it kind of made and a/c room for the chicks to go in when they were over heated.

It seems strang though they would eat the chickens heads, especailly that many so quickly.

But a thought for the heat. Good luck.

 

[007Dawn]

I do not see mesh at top of coup under roof,,,, Is this open for coon to scale and slide in? It only takes a leave of a couple of inches for them to be able to sqeeze right on in.

 

[highcountrychickens]

I'm SO sorry you lost your chickens like this!

Just to put your mind at ease, it's highly unlikely that your chickens would cannibalize in this manner.. It's also highly unlikely that this had to do with heat stroke or ventilation. Looking at your coop, which at first blush looks bomb-proof (nice coop!) I would bet on one of two predator scenarios - The gaps under the eve are large enough for a predator such as a weasel or even a small raccoon to slip through. I have also seen owls squeak into spaces that size, and the scene you described sounds much like an owl (during richer summer months when hunting is good and prey plentiful, Owls will very typically consume only the head of their feathered prey... very often you will find headless grouse because of this). The fact that this happened during the day, however, is a bit confusing, as there are not many predators that work during the day, especially not during the hot summer when they don't necessarily need to.
I would suggest shoring up your coop a bit by adding some mesh under those eves so there are no openings, and perhaps look into the wildlife trap cameras they sell at WalMart if you can't stand a mystery!

Good luck

 

[mamahubb]

Thank you all so much. I am quite relieved to know they are not sick which was my first concern of all that one had died and the others ate it and then more died and they ate them too, so that would mean they would all be sick and we would loose them all. I am also very relieved to know it is unlikely that they are killing one another.

We are going to fix up the coop and put screen at the top and finish the nesting boxes to put the doors on once the afternoon heat breaks. I feel sure it is some predator because we have ALOT around here. I thought the gaps at the top of the coop would be small enough and hard enough to get to that they wouldn't be a problem, but this is my first time and I tend to lean on the side of naive when it comes to what animals will do for easy food, so we will get that remedied before I put the last of my girls away for the night and we will get those doors put on so that we can take down the chicken wire and all will hopefully all will be safe in the coop again. I think my kids and I will also order some more chicks to replace the girls we lost...

Thanks for the info on cooling. I really didn't think it was the heat because I built the coop in full shade where it's about 10 degrees cooler than in the full sun here and they spend most of the day under the pen where it is even cooler because the air is more trapped, but someone had mentioned to me that that does happen here, so it made me worry, but come August it will be even hotter than it is now, so I will most likely be using the ice packs to help them out! It's a great and cheap idea.


Sarah