Help! My four babies died!

[slordaz]

Goodness, I certainly hope no one put poison out... In a nefarious way. We do not use rat poison in my home or outside due to the animals (and dogs; they get into everything). We actually don't have any poison or traps (other than bug traps that are all inside and hanging fly traps outside). My partner smokes loose leaf tobacco; is there any way that if some of that dropped onto the ground and they pecked it up that it could cause death? I wouldn't think that much would get out, though... So probably not.

And I am on a very fixed budget right now so I may not be able to get it completed if it is too expensive. I have been reading online and the most common response is coccidiosis (especially at their age). But I would think that it would happen one at a time, not all four within two hours?

I seriously doubt tabacco was to blame unless they ate a whole lot of it ,it's been used to worm dogs and cats

 

[polapar]

I really didn't think so but I figured I'd post the question. The bag was still upright and there was no significant droppage.

 

[Cyprus]

It sounds like they may have ingested mold or contracted botulism, both of which kill quickly.

Botulism classically presents with outstretched legs.

 

[springvalley123]

Sorry for your loss. Along the lines of poison, not sure where you are in AZ, but my experience in the valley, black canyon, and north, a lot of people put out poison for pack rats. Could it be that your birds got a bite of pack rat, after it had been poisoned but before it died? The rats eat many times the amount of poison needed to do them in, but take several days to die, and wouldn't show signs of being ill after snacking at your neighbor's and before arriving at your yard. I suppose the heat is a little less likely, it sounds like they've survived outside during the worst of the heat wave and today is about the coolest it's been in quite a while. Could your dogs have spooked them, or have the dogs been out every day? Anything else different about today?

 

[Chelsa'sChicks]

Could also be a cat. It would be harder to find the teeth marks cause they are needle like, but I feel a cat would 100% see 4 babies and chases them down. I'm also thinking of predators that would leave the bodies (as it sounds like a sport kill), which would also be a cat. If the predator was hungry they would have taken the bodies especially young chicks.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Do you have any dogs? Sometimes dogs will play with birds and toss them in the air breaking their necks. I would assume it was something like that before I though disease. You can get a bird tested if you want to know for sure.

 

[Cyprus]

I haven't seen any place offer a necropsy for less than $60 per bird.

I honestly think it was toxicity/botulism.

 

[polapar]

I'll look up the botulism issue; I'll need to make sure that I prevent that for any of my other birds.

There's definitely a lot of stray cats around (anyone who lives in AZ knows this well...) but I've never had a problem with them before and my dogs were out at the time of the deaths so I can't see a cat getting into the yard and chasing them down without being attacked by my dogs.

As far as my dogs, they have lived outside with the chickens since I got them about 2 years ago. They started off rough with them but they've become accustomed to them and more protect them from predators than anything else (they've chased off a few coyotes in their day). They haven't chased the chickens in at least a year now.

I'm in the Phoenix area in AZ, so I'm not quite sure about the pack rats issue. I'm not totally familiar with the problem but that could be a possibility. We all know that chickens will chase ANYTHING haha.

 

[polapar]

OMG. Just read about botulism. Extremely disturbing. I am going to go check their feed now. They mostly eat dried feed but it's definitely possible that some of the feed got onto the ground and got wet by the misters/water area.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I'm sorry for your losses. The fact that all the dead birds were found so close together, so near the exit gate, if I understand correctly, sounds to me as if something was chasing them. In the heat it may not have taken much to overexert them fatally. The legs sticking out just sounds to me like rigor setting in. Could some kind of predator have gotten in and gotten them all flustered? Something that didn't bother the older birds so much, or that the older birds could have had the sense or experience to avoid? Maybe even something like a playful puppy, that was really just trying to play with them, comes to mind, not a serious predator that would have torn them apart. I don't know, I'm just trying to interpret the evidence.