I googled "chicken just dropped dead" and here I am. Me and my son were just putting some fencing up and I needed a piece that was inside an adjoining paddock. The flock scurried along the fence away from me and back around to the other side. I grabbed what I needed and while walking back to the gate I just happened to look over and saw one of the roosters appear to trip over something. He didn't get up and I just thought it was par for the course as he's not the brightest roo. I stopped and gave him a few seconds and nothing...walked over to him and expected him to get up but nothing...picked him up and he was limp. No flopping, flailing, or anything...just dead!! I sat there bewildered and after a couple minutes I could see the lower part of the the front of his neck start to slowly rise and fall, kind of like he was breathing. It didn't quite look how a bird looks while taking a breath so I found that odd as well.
I raise a lot of birds and seen some strange things but this one has me stumped. My ONLY theory is he was eating on some grass or something and when I entered the pen, he forgot to completely swallow...like I said, he's dumb. He was uncoordinated and couldn't even peck feed off the ground. He was destined for the stew pot anyway and was right about 10mths old so I'm not torn up about it, just curious if anyone has a better theory???
I raise a lot of birds and seen some strange things but this one has me stumped. My ONLY theory is he was eating on some grass or something and when I entered the pen, he forgot to completely swallow...like I said, he's dumb. He was uncoordinated and couldn't even peck feed off the ground. He was destined for the stew pot anyway and was right about 10mths old so I'm not torn up about it, just curious if anyone has a better theory???
