my chicken just fell over and died!!!!!!!!!!

[cixuru]

oh my god she was fine she squawked once fell over and was dead i loved her so much

i don't know what happened she woke up this morning and was walking around eating drinking then just fell over and immediateidy died. anybody know what i did wrong? what happened? i'm devastated. it's awful. i dont' know what to do.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Sounds like a heart attack--was she a meat bird?

 

[arlee453]

So sorry about your hen!

Could she have gotten into something? Is it extremely hot there? Was she a meat bird? Were the combs/wattles purple or off color before?

The main thing is to try to figure out what happened so you can either take precautions for the rest of your birds, or relax that it was a one-off thing.

 

[cixuru]

we have no other birds. there aren't any predators. she's been totally fine. It's about 70 degrees during the day and 60 at night. slightly overcast.

she never laid any eggs. she's not for eating. she was a pet. She really meant something particularly special to me.

About fifteen minutes before she died her wattles were a tiny bit darker at the tips, but it was hard to say because we haven't known her that long. After she died they were a bit greyish.

We live in Los Angeles and two weeks ago she came to the front porch while I was scattering bird seed. I let her into the back yard and built her a coop. Several neighbors said they'd seen her hiding under cars and in the street for many weeks...apparently nobody felt like doing anything about that.

She's been fine for two weeks - honestly, I fell in love with her. She has been perfect - up at dawn, pecking around, drinking, hanging out, walking to her coop at dusk, falling asleep, sometimes squawking in the night and I'd go out and sit with her and talk to her til she fell asleep.

This morning we let her out at 6am and she went to eat and drink and then i went to say hi at 8am before I left for work and she was squawking a lot and standing, then walking around a bit, everything seemed mostly okay but we kept an eye on her. she went into the bushes and squawked and then ran out, flapped her wings, and died immediately.

 

[arlee453]

What did she look like? It could be she was a broiler that escaped from a truck on the way to the processing plant... That would explain the sudden collapse.

Or she could have just been really old.

If she was a hen and never laid eggs, then she was either really old or really young...

Here's a picture of a cornish X - they are notorious for dropping dead, as they were bred to grow faster than their bodies can handle.

(this is not my pic - just gleaned from a quick web search)

http://static.flickr.com/37/123745202_bf9e6b207a_m.jpg

 

[cixuru]

Quote:
She was a rhode island red. Extremely large - other people who raised chickens said she was unusually large. And her beak was very cropped - right up to the nostrils. It was ragged when she arrived at the front porch, probably from trying to find food on the asphalt.

It's heartbreaking because she seemed really happy to have a home. She hung out with me while I was painting her coop, and seemed just to be so enthusiastic about life.

It's very difficult to deal with this emotionally because she was so happy, and because I feel like I did something wrong that hurt her. I don't know what to do emotionally.

 

[cixuru]

was it a heart attack?

 

[my1stchicks]

I'm so sorry but at least you can feel good knowing that you made her last weeks very happy.

 

[amyquilt]

Quote:
Exactly. {{{{HUGS}}}} Maybe she was just very old and it was her time.

 

[Solsken Farm]

Quote:
Exactly. {{{{HUGS}}}} Maybe she was just very old and it was her time.

Yep, I was thinking the same thing.....

I am so so sorry. You sound like you gave her a wonderful loving end.