Help on why one of my chickens died.

[Eggcessive]

Yes she could have swallowed hardware. That is common around chicken yards, and there is a hardware disease that can happen. Her crop appears large in the picture above. A crop disorder such as impacted or sour crop could have been possible. Have you wormed your chickens, and do you provide poultry granite grit to help with digestion in the gizzard? Necropsies can be very inexpensive in some states, especially if you tell them it is a backyard bird, and take the body in yourself.

 

[Lizzy733]

View attachment 2900463
This was her the morning I found her in the coop before I took her inside. Her poop the previous day was normal but once I brought her inside it was white and watery I assumed from her not wanting to eat the whole day. She was about 4-5 weeks away from laying.
husband does not want to pay for anything he’s not an animal person and I was lucky to get chickens at all. She felt slightly lighter then my other hen but not a big difference. My husband has been working in the backyard with screws, nuts and bolts ect. Could her having eaten one do something like this?

Absolutely could have been.

Honestly, my run's not hardware free either, just lucky to not have my hens get into anything. Metals specifically can be quite toxic if ingested, not to mention a possible perforation of the crop or intestinal tract.

If you're not squeemish, you could open her up yourself, but I can absolutely understand not wanting to do this for a pet. All of ours get potted tree burials regardless of whether we know the cause of death... At least for now. We have just bought a hobby farm, so our poultry keeping will be upscaling very soon.

 

[MaybeMay]

At 14 weeks old, she would not have been laying. Do not spray chickens for lice or mites unless you see them or the eggs. Look under the vents, lower bellies, and under wings. Here is how to examine and what to look for:
https://the-chicken-chick.com/poultry-lice-and-mites-identification/

Could your chicken have been kept from food or water byt the other chicken? Losing one this early could have been an organ problem, heart failure, or something like Mareks. Very hard ro know without sending her body in to the state vet for a necropsy and testing. What state are you in? Do you still have the body, and could you wrap it in 2 garbage bags and refrigerate it or put it in a cooler? Here is a list of state vets to contact:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

Okay I’ll look them over and spray if I see anything. Thank you for the link.
I saw her eating the previous day when I took them out veggie scraps and hadn’t noticed them stopping her from eating but the last few days have been terrible weather so haven’t spent to much time outside with them other then to feed change water and let them out in morning or put them in at night.
I'm in Victoria Australia and it can cost a couple hundred to get a chicken looked over we can’t afford that. In a very bad financial situation atm due to our extended over the top lock downs here.

 

[MaybeMay]

Yes she could have swallowed hardware. That is common around chicken yards, and there is a hardware disease that can happen. Her crop appears large in the picture above. A crop disorder such as impacted or sour crop could have been possible. Have you wormed your chickens, and do you provide poultry granite grit to help with digestion in the gizzard? Necropsies can be very inexpensive in some states, especially if you tell them it is a backyard bird, and take the body in yourself.

I’m new to chickens so not sure what to look for in terms of her crop. Any advice to what to look for in my other chickens.
I have not wormed them but have been giving them natural things to prevent worms and keeping an eye on there poo. I haven’t given them grit as they free range all day and read they will find it themselves free ranging. Should I get some though? I’m in Victoria Australia and have looked it up to see that it can cost a couple hundred and we’re not in a good financial situation due to ridicules lockdowns.

 

[MaybeMay]

Absolutely could have been.

Honestly, my run's not hardware free either, just lucky to not have my hens get into anything. Metals specifically can be quite toxic if ingested, not to mention a possible perforation of the crop or intestinal tract.

If you're not squeemish, you could open her up yourself, but I can absolutely understand not wanting to do this for a pet. All of ours get potted tree burials regardless of whether we know the cause of death... At least for now. We have just bought a hobby farm, so our poultry keeping will be upscaling very soon.

I’m starting to think this may have been the cause so I might go do a check over of the backyard
Yah I’m to squeamish for that especially seeming as they’re backyard pets. Do hope to have our own hobby farm one day too when kids are a little bigger so I might have to get over it one day.

 

[Eggcessive]

Some soil may have enough small gravels/rocks, but not all soil will have enough grit naturally. We can bag a bag of granite poultry grit here for around $10, but the bags tend to be smaller lately. A necropsy to open the crop and gizzard to look for any hardware items would be good. Looking for other problems by examining organs can be helpful. Care should be taken when working with hardware around coops and free range areas. I have always kept a coffee can around to pick up small pieces of glass and other debris that have come to the surface. Chicken will eat almost anything, including jewelry and strings.

 

[Lizzy733]

I’m starting to think this may have been the cause so I might go do a check over of the backyard
Yah I’m to squeamish for that especially seeming as they’re backyard pets. Do hope to have our own hobby farm one day too when kids are a little bigger so I might have to get over it one day.

I had to do my first cull due to lockdowns in september. One of my old shavers (my last one standing) had issue after issue after issue. At the point that she started really losing body condition, I called it after spending almost two weeks trying to get her stable and did cervical dislocation with a pole.

She was one of the first chickens we bought raised in the brooder, so was pretty rough, but better than watching her suffer a long drawn out death.

Sometimes it's just one of those things you have to do for the health of your flock. I spent the last year doing volunteer work for our local bird rescue org here in NZ strictly to gain better knowledge on avian medical care so I'd be better at making these kinds of judgements and know how to handle things when disaster struck.

- not a job for the sqeamish, especially when peeparing food for raptors, but puts things in perspective for sure.