Cachickmama
In the Brooder
We are devastated with one of our chicken dying and still trying to process what could have happened.
We are first time chicken farmers and have 4 chickens(two BO , one Speckled sussex and one NewHampshire red).
The two BO's are about a year old and the other two are about 8 months.
The BO's are also a little heavy and the dead one if the biggest(and much loved) among the two.
We live in Northern califormia and had a heat wave on Wednesday(90+ degrees), Thursday(100+). Usually all the chickens voluntarily
go in the coop as it gets dark but on Thursday night the two buff Orpington's did not want to go into the coop and after cooling down the coop we placed them in the coop. We realized that it got very hot for them and next day we offered more cold treats and water holes, misted them and all of them were behaving normally
so breathed a sigh of relief. Saturday went about smoothly , they went into the coop on their own both on Friday and Saturday nights.
We were pretty busy on Sunday with fathers day and all, made sure they had water, gave them treats, greens etc and even though one of them is not present
during the times, we just thought she is playing someplace else. But when we went to check in the evening, we found our beloved BO just sitting in the spot where they usually lay eggs, dead. It was pretty shocking and we did not further inspect as our young child( he goes around saying, i love all the chickens, but Chuckles(which is the BO's name) is my favorite) is around. Later we buried her in our backyard without much further inspection and thought it must be due to the heat wave..
But now we wonder if its really heat wave?? Every article and post i read says that if a chicken has heat stroke she wont even be able to get up but ours looked normal and going about her business for almost two days.
So question is, has anyone had the same experience where a chicken had heat stroke but seems to be normal only to die a coupla days later. Could the cause be something else? I am attaching the picture of her before we disposed her.
Thanks
Chickmama.
We are first time chicken farmers and have 4 chickens(two BO , one Speckled sussex and one NewHampshire red).
The two BO's are about a year old and the other two are about 8 months.
The BO's are also a little heavy and the dead one if the biggest(and much loved) among the two.
We live in Northern califormia and had a heat wave on Wednesday(90+ degrees), Thursday(100+). Usually all the chickens voluntarily
go in the coop as it gets dark but on Thursday night the two buff Orpington's did not want to go into the coop and after cooling down the coop we placed them in the coop. We realized that it got very hot for them and next day we offered more cold treats and water holes, misted them and all of them were behaving normally
so breathed a sigh of relief. Saturday went about smoothly , they went into the coop on their own both on Friday and Saturday nights.
We were pretty busy on Sunday with fathers day and all, made sure they had water, gave them treats, greens etc and even though one of them is not present
during the times, we just thought she is playing someplace else. But when we went to check in the evening, we found our beloved BO just sitting in the spot where they usually lay eggs, dead. It was pretty shocking and we did not further inspect as our young child( he goes around saying, i love all the chickens, but Chuckles(which is the BO's name) is my favorite) is around. Later we buried her in our backyard without much further inspection and thought it must be due to the heat wave..
But now we wonder if its really heat wave?? Every article and post i read says that if a chicken has heat stroke she wont even be able to get up but ours looked normal and going about her business for almost two days.
So question is, has anyone had the same experience where a chicken had heat stroke but seems to be normal only to die a coupla days later. Could the cause be something else? I am attaching the picture of her before we disposed her.
Thanks
Chickmama.
