Lifeless chicken opening it's mouth in a rhythmic pattern...

[theoldchick]

This is called agonal breathing-the body's final attempt at supplying oxygen. This is not good. So sorry.

 

[Natural Mastery]

No symptoms, they were just dead in the brooder 2 weeks apart when I went to check their food and water in the morning. I think one was working feverishly to get out of the brooder after she had escaped the hatch the day before and gotten a taste of freedom. Probably broke her neck. The other was just dead after being fine the day before. I'm not new to chickens and have nursed many a sick chicken back to life but this unexpected discover your dead chickens in their houses thing sucks!! Makes me anxious whenever I go to greet them in the morning and round them up at night.

I did discover a bag of organic fruit tree fertilizer that had been torn into by an animal in the night a few days ago and quickly cleaned it all up, but maybe I didn't get it all because it'd been raining the night before and it was pretty broken down. Perhaps she found some and ate it...

I've been winter layering the coop for the last couple of years instead of using diatomaceous earth and I put apple cider vinegar in their water and make my own feed from layer crumbles, corn, oat groats, sunflower seeds, flax meal, garlic powder, powdered milk and probiotic powder. Everyone seems much healthier than when I fed store bought layer crumbles. They free range and get plenty of grit but also have oyster shell if they want it. They don't eat much of it though. They have a flock block and get plenty of veggie and fruit scraps from the garden and the kitchen but never any citrus. The last I gave them was a load of organic apple and pear peelings.

Stumped. And sad.

 

[theoldchick]

It is heartbreaking to do everything right only to have this type of thing happen. Many of us here have gone through the same thing. So sorry.