Lost first chicken due to car?

TroutsChicks

Fluffy Stuffins
8 Years
Jun 5, 2011
506
0
99
baxter Tn
I got 16 chicks on 5/14/11. I raised them into pullets without any loses. Just had all 16 lay for me last weekend..it was awesome. Then today I found one of my BA's laying 20 feet away from the road on my property with her head hanging down and breathing hard..making a gurgling raspy sound. The dh and I carefully took her inside and I looked her over, no visible damage. She had some small cuts on her beak and around her eyes. By the road there's alot of briers. I found only 4 feathers by the road but none on it. I looked around the road throughly..I did find an area directly across from where we found her where a chicken had been scratching. Now this BA, whom I called "imposter chicken" b/c she looks like "wild chicken" my favorite chicken so much ..I would pick her up and it wasn't until she started to freak out I would know shes the wrong chicken. But this chicken..along with a BR was obsessed with the road, she was the only one that would cross it, I am constantly chasing those two from the road. We are planning to put up a fence and now have moved this up to a top priority because of this. When I came back from checking the road my DH was with her and talking to her, she was throwing her neck up and opening her mouth and making this awful gurgling noise and would shake her head. There was blood and other goo coming up and then all of a sudden she flug her wings out and started to fling her self around...startling the both of us. Before that she wasn't moving, her wings and head where hanging. but after her flipping around a flinging blood all over the place she finally died while we held her still. she died very quickly. Before I found her she was running around acting normal just laid an egg. No problems. After she died we tried to decide on what to do with her..b/c we weren't 100% sure on it she was hit by a car. She had bloody fluid coming out of her mouth and more fluid out her back side.. so we decided to burry her. Now my question is do y'all think she was hit by a car? I thought maybe she ate something that she shouldn't of..but I have looked all around and found nothing that she could have gotten into. WE keep everything put up b/c we worry about their safety. We have put alot of time and care and money into them and want the best for them. Its a little tough losing my 1st chicken in may they will be a year old. So what do you think...car or? People FLY down this country road...just a couple of month ago we had a 20 year old man flip his car 6 times and land in our yard..and die in the life flight..its a bad road..mst people take it easy and drive by slow..I think they laugh at our setup..and the chicken running around. but we have the few jerks that fly down the road.
 
It's possible she just got rolled by a car or clipped by one. But I'm going to go ahead and say it was a car. I've lost so many animals to the stupid drivers on our road. Most things don't go in it but I had guineas that just loved it. DH says I'm not allowed to have them anymore because of that
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Sorry for your loss
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Thank you very much. It sucks loosing one when I have been so careful and protective of them...turned my back maybe five minutes on them. We have been planning the route of the fence. You take risks when you free range. I just hope there's no more accidents.
 
If she was upping blood, it sounds like something internal was ruptured. Now, whether that is from an infection or being clipped by a car is anyone's guess.

I'm so sorry, its awful when one of your girls dies no matter how it happened.
 
If you allow your pets, chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits, cows, etc, to get into the road, eventually one or more of them are going to get hit by a car. "Stupid drivers" have nothing to do with it. It is the responsibility of the owner of the pet, not the responsibility of the driver to keep your pet safe while it is wandering around on a public road. If you don't want your pets hit by cars, keep them out of the road.

It doesn't sound to me like the bird was hit by a car. Even a glancing blow from anything that heavy going that fast would kill a chicken outright. It doesn't particularly sound like disease, but I suggest that you keep a very close eye on the rest of the flock. It sounds suspiciously to me like she was grabbed and crushed by a large animal and managed to escape but was too badly injured to live.

Watch carefully for blood in the stool of the rest of them, just in case it was coxidia.
 
Thank you, still havent seen any signs of sickness. We have only one small hawk in the area and the chickens are bigger then it. It only flys over every couple of days. I have kept them in the pen all of today, only got out an hour. I didn't have time to watch them so They had to wait until the dh got home. No signs of bite marks or claw marks on her.
 
Something to consider. THis time it was a car(probably) but what if your free ranging chickens run into a motorcycle? What if the biker gets hurt or , even worse, killed.If they can link your chicken to the accident, you would be responsible .
 

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