Hello! Second day, terrible night.

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whosthisbroad

whosthisbroad

In the Brooder
Mar 5, 2017
16
0
22
Southeastern WI
Hello! My husband and I received our first 3 chickens, 6wk old EEs, yesterday! We live in rural WI and have a 3 year old son. We are all very excited about the new additions to our family. This morning, my husband went to check on them and found one of them dead, head down between the planks between their coop and ladder. This chicken also snuck out after I placed them all in their coop as night fell, as they were huddled together under the ladder with eyes closed. I checked on them an hour later, to find her back down out of the coop and under the ladder, so I scooped her and put her back in. I'm sure she tried to get back down under the ladder, but instead he found her head down, feet stretched out, obviously passed. We are devastated. I know, this isn't a traditional intro post, but this is my intro to keeping hens. Do we need to cover these planks? They are three 2x4s with a gap of 1.5 inches between them. Is this a design flaw on our part or some kind of weird accident? She did seem more lethargic yesterday than the other two, I just chalked it up to her traveling overnight to us, but that wouldn't explain why she would keep leaving the coop after dark, would it? We are going as local as possible from now on in case the stress of travel played a role.
 
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Sorry for the loss of one of your birds.
 
So sorry for your loss. Sometimes it seems like chickens try hard to kill themselves in weird situations. Ditto for ducks, et.
 
Thank you everybody. It very well could be bullying, she would have put up the least fight as she seemed the weak link. For some reason with this situation my mind kept coming back to that episode of the Simpsons where a handful of characters are lost at sea on a life raft. They see a seagull and one says, "Hey! We must be close to land, seagulls only fly far out over the ocean to die!" They then watch the bird die and fall into the ocean. Lol idk I just find a bit of peace in hoping that is what happened vs falling and being unable to get up or being pushed out of the coop to succumb to the elements.
Yesterday, we introduced two Wyandottes (10wks) to the two remaining EEs (6wks) and wlso far they are getting along perfectly. Starting to see the beginnings of establishing a hierarchy. I love reading through the forums andlearning/ picking up tidbits from everyone. Hopefully my future posts will all be positive ones!
 

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