Help! My poor chicken has died and I don't know why....

[pat r]

I am brand new at chickens. I've read like crazy and tried to do "all the right things". Today, one of my red sex link hens was in the nest, tail out, head toward wall. I thought she was trying to lay an egg. She wasn't making any sound, so, I assumed she was fine. This was about 3:00 p.m. I went back out about 45 minutes later and checked the henhouse. She was in her nest, dead. Rigamortis (sp?) had already begun to set in. One eye was closed, one not completely, but she was dead. There was leakage from her vent that looked like an egg that had broken inside her and was leaking out. What exactly happened? Can anyone explain? Was there anything I could have done to help her? To prevent this?

Thank you so much for any information you may be able to provide.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome, I'm so sorry for your loss. Birds will act 'fine' as long as possible, so often they don't 'act sick' at all, and seem to just die. How old was she Any evidence of mites or lice? Only a necropsy will tell you what happened. You can wrap and refrigerate her body, and have it checked tomorrow, or bury her. Mary

 

[pat r]

Thank you for your reply. I read the post here on egg bound hens. I'm wondering if she was egg bound? She was about 9 1/2 months old. I have been getting some seriously oversized eggs and don't know which bird has been laying them. I've also gotten three double-yolk eggs and don't know which bird laid them. Even though we have plenty of nests and I keep them all clean, there are two they seem to like. On the rare occasion when we are gone very long, as we were today, I come home to half a dozen eggs in one nest! We no longer have the bird. We immediately burned her little chicken body. Not knowing what the problem was, we didn't want to take a risk that anything would get hold of her.

I've recently been caring for two black sex links that have "bumblefoot" that went to what I believe is a staph infection. They have been isolated in the "chicken hospital" (a small tractor with housing) for 10 days while being given Fish Mox (Amoxicillin). I opened a 250 mg capsule, added warm water, stirred until dissolved, and used a small dropper to work it down their little throats. They seem to be feeling much better. They were guarding their crushed calcium from each other today.

I've been watching my birds for signs of this and no other birds have exhibited any such signs. The red sex link was simply in the nest, appeared to be trying to lay, and expired.

So much to learn!