Maybe I'm not cut out for this ....

[Murs]

I started with 4 hens that I bought from someone moving out of state. 2 barred rock, 1 Rhode Island Red and 1 buff Orpington.

I'm down to one as of this morning.

My first one, the Rhode Island Red, got snagged by a raccoon through the chain link fence. Lesson learned, wrapped the chain link with hardware cloth.

I also had a roost for them outside which I took down and showed them they should be sleeping inside the hen house.

Several months go by and we're all happy campers. Then I decide to put the roost back up so they have an outdoor spot out of the dirt. That was fine for a while, until a couple of them decided to sleep outside at night. One morning I woke and found a headless chicken. Boggles my mind because she was inside the hen house. I could not find any tracks or any signs that anything was disturbed. I'm assuming it was a raccoon and somewhere must have been able to reach through and grab her by the neck.

So, again I took the outside roost down.

My last two we're doing fine until about a week ago. My Buff Orpington was not her usual self. Lethargic, eating but not really enthusiastic about it like she used to be. This morning I found her dead. No sign of injury. She was underneath the hen house.

All I have left is one barred rock, Earline,and I can still hear her crying.

I have no idea why Buffy died. Was it old age? Did she get sick?

I'm not sure what I can do for Earline. She's so sad. I had intended to get more chickens but now I'm just not sure.

Feeling blue....

 

[PrairieChickens]

The medicated feed is to help them cope with the bacteria in their environment. If your chicks haven't been vaccinated for coccidiosis they should be on medicated feed to prevent infection. It's a good idea for any chicks that haven't been vaccinated, shipped or not.

Almost all chicks sold in the USA are shipped at some point--either directly to you or to the store selling them. If you don't have access to a local hatchery or breeder, shipped chicks is about all that's available to you, but that doesn't mean you should expect to receive sick or damaged chicks. Most of my experiences with shipped chicks have gone well, with no more casualties or health problems than what I might get from a batch of home-grown chicks. The important thing is to get them hydrated, fed, and warm as soon as they arrive to give them the strongest possible start.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome! Medicated chick starter feed is meant to help control their exposure to coccidian, which is a one-celled intestinal parasite. Nothing to do with bacteria at all. If the chicks had coccidiosis vaccine, that means they were exposed to a very small dose of the parasite, and the medicated feed will kill of that tiny parasite load, so the inoculation is overcome and useless. Chicks raised under a broody hen are exposed to their environment sooner, so generally develop immunities more gracefully. Mary

 

[GreenChicken07]

I came across your post and I just had to reply. I'm really sorry about your rotten luck, that really isn't a good way to begin the poultry-keeping hobby.

Things like this do happen to the best of us but as you said, you learnt from your mistakes and if you do consider keeping on with this hobby, you know what do to next time.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

[bobbi-j]

This is the hard part about chicken-keeping. Chickens die - sometimes without explanation. They are also on the bottom of the food chain for pretty much EVERYTHING. Your chicken would be happier with some feathered company, as they are flock animals. You, however, need to decide if you can emotionally handle the common losses that each one of us has to deal with - predators,mysterious diseases, or unexplained death. Your surviving chicken will soon stop calling for her buddy. Right now she's just confused. She'll get over it.

 

[mustang56]

It might have been a weasel.... they like to take the heads off chickens just because they like to kill.
If I were you... I would find her a buddy or two, about the same age, and size.... she's lonely.
If you can give her special treats, and a lot of attention to take her mind off being alone...
Chickens need buddies... they get depressed and stressed out...

I feel for ya, its sad... but don't give up.... and double check everything around that area
to make sure predators can't get in... We have lots of predators up here in Washington.

Wishing you a happy ending...!

 

[Murs]

Thanks everyone. I do want to keep chickens.

I have read (this site is so informative) that chickens need their buddies. There's a feed store just down the street, I could pick one up now.

My intent was to get 4 new chickens so I would have six but I wasn't sure if I wanted chicks or older hens. I'm also not set up to quarantine. Maybe I should give this hen up and start with all new chickens.

 

[SlipsWife]

Last year was our first year and we started with chicks. I can't even begin to tell you the losses we had. We had a couple die quickly, probably from shipping stress that we got from our local TSC. A tiny little bantam that we thought for sure wasn't going to make it and it perked up and was doing great, just to pass without reason about 2 weeks later. Then the predators start. A dog we use to have started killing them. It was almost impossible to stop him. He started attacking our other animals and became protective aggressive and had to go. We got 2 more dogs, about 4 months old. They did pretty good with the chickens until they killed their first one, then it was game on. The had to be rehomed. We had 2 we lost at about 4 months a few days apart, we are thinking maybe a hawk tried picking them up but dropped them? They had no signs of trauma other than a little blood at the mouth. There was also an order of bantams that I suddenly realized we needed to do a head count and we had gone from 30 to 14...turns out it was a feral cat (or cats) that was picking them off. At first it must have been eating them and taking them somewhere but then it just started killing them. A couple got into the water buckets for the mini cows we use to have and drowned.

We sold a number of our chicks before we started experiencing losses and wish we wouldn't have. After everything was said and done we had 100 chicks total and we have 6 standards and 2 bantams left from last year. It was probably a 50/50 sell/loss...I felt like a chicken murderer.

This year we've lost 7 out of our fist order of 17 chicks due to extreme cold and shipping losses. Our second order did great and all 14 survived, our 3rd order did great and all 27 survived. I then bought 10 bantams and 2 ducklings at our local TSC and they are doing good. We had 2 loses yesterday, there must have been a spot in the grow out pen we missed that 2 of the chicks got out and our dog was 'playing with them' and killed them.

He is not like the other dogs we had that went after the chicks as prey and as long as we can keep the chicks away from him, he ignores them. Its a different situation than we dealt with last year but still hard. He stays away from the grown hens just fine since it's 'obvious' they don't want to play with him.

I was just patting myself on the back yesterday, before the losses, on how much better we are doing this year than last year. You learn as you go. I felt sick last year every time I thought about how we had failed and almost gave up a few times but learning from our experiences and the experiences of others on this site has helped.

.

 

[GreenChicken07]

I really have sympathies for you both. I am also just getting into the hobby but I have been very careful with my birds and have not yet suffered any losses.

As terrible as it sounds, maybe the losses can be treated as learning experiences and next time it will go better.

Murs, if I were you i'd keep the older hen, you've been through a lot together and if you do get the babies she'll teach them the ropes.

Good luck!

 

[bobbi-j]

I really have sympathies for you both. I am also just getting into the hobby but I have been very careful with my birds and have not yet suffered any losses. 

As terrible as it sounds, maybe the losses can be treated as learning experiences and next time it will go better. 

Murs, if I were you i'd keep the older hen, you've been through a lot together and if you do get the babies she'll teach them the ropes. 

Good luck! 

GreenChicken,
I'm glad you haven't had any losses yet, but don't let your guard down. No matter how careful you are, one day something will find its way into your coop or your chickens will get out, or one will get sick. It may not even happen anytime soon. You could go for years without a loss. I agree that every loss is a learning opportunity. It's a tough learning curve.
Unfortunately, an older hen will not teach younger ones the ropes. Unless a hen is broody and given very young chickens to raise, she will instead most likely try to kill them if introduced when the chicks are much smaller than she is. Even though chickens are flock animals, they generally aren't readily accepting of newcomers no matter what the size. The pecking order must be established, and that's not always pretty.