Help!!

[chasity83]

I have had 2 chickens to just die, I'm not sure why?

 

[LadyFowler]

Couple more questions for myself or others to help you out: What breed are they? How old are they? How long have you had them? Any new chickens/ducks/birds/animals introduced recently? Any recent changes to their feed? Are they allowed to freely roam your property, or are they fenced in? How many chickens do you have around them?

 

[chasity83]

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Couple more questions for myself or others to help you out: What breed are they? How old are they? How long have you had them? Any new chickens/ducks/birds/animals introduced recently? Any recent changes to their feed? Are they allowed to freely roam your property, or are they fenced in? How many chickens do you have around them?

 

[chasity83]

Ok I've had a duck for five yrs but he was at my dads and 2 weeks ago I brought him back home. The little chick that just died was a RIR and it was approximately 3 months old. My son found it this morning and an ice cream bucket was on top of it but it had holes in the bucket but I don't understand how it couldn't get out of it. It was still warm when we got the bucket off of it. Then yesterday I had at least a yr old black banty hen to just die

 

[chasity83]

Also I'm kinda new to this site and I'm on my mobile device so sorry I reposted your comment several times

 

[LadyFowler]

That's ok, I'm the same way with mobile devices.

I'm not a veterinarian or certified bird expert, just a disclosure. Hard to say without autopsy or testing. But the two deaths could be related to the duck bringing some microorganism that your flock at home is not familiar with (not showing signs of illness, thus being a "carrier"), of course the deaths could also have been coincidental (the RIR suffocating to death/overheating/stressing under ice cream bucket and the banty hen for some other unrelated cause). If you have other birds, it might be late, but aside from keeping an eye on whether they are behaving normal or sickly. I would suggest cleaning out feeders,etc and separating sick birds from healthy. Maybe adding some electrolytes (can be founds at TSC or feed stores in small packets) to their water may help?

For future, I practice biosecurity by introducing my birds in stages: 30 days of quarantine in an area far/separate from my flock to observe for illness, then I put them in the coop divided by fencing/screen to get familiar, and then let them during the day interact to make sure there are no signs of aggressiveness. Sometimes this means removing my most dominant hen/rooster/drake to a separate enclosure so that it throws of the "pecking-order". This may be more info then you need.

Is the duck dominant or aggressive? I'm not sure if keeping the duck separate. Ducks can be aggressive/dominant too or if the duck (if drake) mounted the banty hen and suffocated her.

Here's a link from another backyardchicken poster about bio-security and additional information that might help.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/biosecurity-for-the-rest-of-us

Good luck.

 

[chasity83]

No my duck "Letti"is not aggressive at all he acts like one of our dogs lol. Your information was greatly appreciated!! The rest of my chicks look healthy as well as all of my bantys and 2 big chickens

 

[LadyFowler]

Hope the rest of your birds do well. I just the lost of two of my drakes yesterday to my last "big" rooster, who is cooking as we speak. Losing birds is no fun