My 5 month old Turken died. Did I do something wrong?

[pkm38]

Hi Everyone,

We bought 2 Turken sisters around a month ago. We feed them Dumor (the starting one for growing chickens). We have them enclosed in a 12x12 dog kennel with chicken wire on top to keep them safe from predators. In the kennel they have a chicken coop 5 1/2' long 2 1/2' wide and 5' high. I filled the bottom with wood shavings and the boxes with straw.

I feel terrible. Our birds seemed to be doing great last night and then I went out this am and found one dead. I looked around the coop and kennel to see if something got in to kill the chicken. I didn't see anything. The other chicken seems to be doing fine so far but I am worried that I am doing something wrong.

I thought they had enough room to walk around, I fed them the chicken feed everyday and gave them water although sometimes I wouldn't change the water for a couple of days.

We wanted to get several more chickens because my grandchildren and I had fallen in love with these little Turkens. We now have one left and would love to get maybe 2 or three more but i want to make sure I am caring for them properly. Would someone help me and let me know if I have been doing something wrong or what I should be looking out for?

Thank you so much for your help.

 

[NonnasBabies]

I don't think you did anything wrong. Sometimes these things just happen.

It's hard to understand when it seems like they died for no reason!!

 

[justbugged]

Quote:
Great answer!

It's sad but often by time you can see that a bird is sick it's way to late to do anything that will change the outcome. Birds are simply very low on the food chain and they hide the most illness until it's to late. I would worm the rest out your flock though. It's a possible explanation as to what happened. It won't hurt your flock if they don't really need it, but better safe than sorry. Use Wazine and follow up 2 weeks later with Ivermectin.

I seem to lose birds at that 5 to 6 month range also. So who knows why. It is possible that you can send in the carcass to your State university for necropsy ( an animal autopsy). I know that Washington State University does a necropsy for 20 dollars. But that is just a basic look at the body, blood work is a lot more. It really isn't worth it unless you have very expensive show birds, and more than one has died.

And I am very sorry for your loss.