My Chickens Are Dying- And I Don't Know Why

[Floofer]

On Sunday, I found one of my chickens dead on the ground. This morning another of my chickens were found dead too. The weird thing is that there were no injuries upon her and she has been showing no signs of sickness. Does anyone know what might be the cause of this? I have 5 other chickens, and I don't want them to suffer the same fate.

 

[writerskramp]

Age.. Breed.. can be as well as where they came from as to quality of animal. Have found them with broken necks.. and another half under a sidewall.. perhaps something tried pulling hen out such as a coon, other than that no marks and looked more than healthy.. Others have been pecked to death or refused access food and water by the flock till they expire. If there was no sign of illness prior.. You might want to consider predator.. Mink, weasel, coon.. possum even.. They are the ninja's of chicken land.. both to kill and leave no obvious evidence, just for fun it seems.

 

[KaseySnow]

Do you have pictures of the dead chickens? The age and breed of these chickens might help us diagnose as well. Pictures of their coop and run might help us figure it out too.

Have they been laying eggs, pooping, and walking around normally beforehand?

 

[Floofer]

To my knowledge, they have been laying eggs, but a mongoose has been getting into the coop and just leaving eggshells behind so I'm not really sure. He's only been eating the eggs though, and mongoose are the only predators where I live. With my previous experiences, mongoose only go after super young chicks. They were doing everything normally besides that. They're only about a year old, got them around last April. Although there are around 4 different breeds of chickens, both the chickens that died were blue pullets. I don't have any pictures of the dead chickens, but I'll try to get some pics in later today because I'm not home at the moment.