My chickens keep dying

[casportpony]

Quote: x2.

 

[nmorrison]

I'm sorry that you lost two of your chickens.  I think diet is the most likely culprit here....just because they look okay doesn't mean they're are okay.  Malnutrition isn't a fast killer....it's slow and finally, when they have no more reserves, they just can't do another day.  There's a difference between chickens that are just surviving from one day to the next and those that are thriving.  Chickens don't always want to show any weakness to predators or flockmates - often they will scratch and peck and lay until they are totally drained, and then just give up when they are too tired to go on.

Those temperatures you gave us....30s to 50s.....it would sure be helpful to know your general location because I don't see that there would be that much life sustaining forage yet if it's still that cool.  All chickens need some kind of balanced nutrition, and a food formulated for them is ideal. The rest - the scraps and the foraging - are supplemental and the shorter days of summer limit how much foraging they can actually do on limited resources.  Giving them food "about every other day" isn't exactly a feeding routine.

Are they getting supplemental calcium in the form of oyster shell or something if they aren't getting layer food daily?  And if they are getting a lot of table scraps, what about access to grit?  Chickens do get grit into their systems when they are foraging, but again if the amount of scraps and forage aren't balanced, the food in the crop isn't being ground up correctly for digestion.

It's human nature to look for a hidden culprit -  a disease or an environmental catastrophe - to explain sudden deaths in our chickens. But the first thing to do is look for the simple and the obvious and try to correct that to see if it makes a difference.  I don't think medicated food is going to be the answer here.  I think at this point any good food fed daily could make a difference. Be forewarned, it might not make a difference overnight - if the issue is poor nutrition then it will take their little bodies time to rebuild.  I wish you all the best the luck with them....as has been said, we aren't trying to be critical but we are trying to help.  

Thank you for your insight. I am new at this and that may be the case. I am taking my remaining hens and the black sexlink in to the vet today.oh. and I'm in oregon. We have new vegetation starting to sprout as well as the weeds that are or backyard

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote: You posted while I was still writing...lol.

 

[casportpony]

Quote: If you still have the body of your recently deceased chicken, and it hasn't been dead for too long, you might want to take that with you so maybe the vet could do a gross necropsy?

 

[Blooie]

Thank you for your insight. I am new at this and that may be the case. I am taking my remaining hens and the black sexlink in to the vet today.oh. and I'm in oregon. We have new vegetation starting to sprout as well as the weeds that are or backyard

That's what we're here for.....I sure hope you come back and let us know what the vet said. We learn so much from each other when we share, and if it's something more serious going through your flock and/or your area that helps all of us!

You posted while I was still writing...lol.

I kinda figured that!

I gotta pay more attention to that "1 new post" thingy that pops up on the bottom of the screen! I'm so bad about that!

 

[nmorrison]

Sad news.....the birds has eaten a huge amount of screws. They made it to the gizzard and then it was backing up into the crop hence causing the fungus build up and symptoms. We built a tree house in the yard a few yeas ago and didn't realize there were screws they could dig up.

 

[Blooie]

Oh, that's terrible! I'm so glad you went in and got it checked out, though. Are the rest of them okay? I lost a bird to a tiny little bit of a metal snip months after we built our run so I know how devastating that is!

Um, you can erase what I thought before!

 

[casportpony]

Sad news.....the birds has eaten a huge amount of screws. They made it to the gizzard and then it was backing up into the crop hence causing the fungus build up and symptoms. We built a tree house in the yard a few yeas ago and didn't realize there were screws they could dig up.

Was this the deceased bird or the live one?

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Oh...that darn hardware disease. I'm so sorry to hear that is the cause...but at the very least yoi know what the cause is. Is there anything that may be done in case the remaining birds ate some screws?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Sad news.....the birds has eaten a huge amount of screws. They made it to the gizzard and then it was backing up into the crop hence causing the fungus build up and symptoms. We built a tree house in the yard a few yeas ago and didn't realize there were screws they could dig up.

I'm sorry for your loss.