Hi all,
One of our two chickens is dead. The death isn't actually a mystery, because we had her euthanized, but the events leading up to her death are really confusing.
Just got back from a family reunion out of state. While there, we got a call from the chickensitter saying she'd found our Ameracauna, Bea, unresponsive in the nest box of our ark. The hen was missing a few feathers and was bleeding from inside her mouth/eye. From across the country, we couldn't know enough to make a good decision, but the vet said that the bird was suffering and the prognosis wasn't looking good and that she'd have to run $500 worth of tests to see what was going on, only perhaps to have to euthanize the hen anyway. It broke our hearts, but we had her put down.
Immediately, I had suspected the boy next store (who was watering our gardens while we were away) of fussing with the coop and somehow getting himself in chicken-related trouble. He's done this before, and I thought this time maybe he'd accidentally harmed one of the hens.
Now, I'm starting to suspect Poppy of killing Bea.
Here are some elements of the circumstances:
This hen and one other lived in our back yard. They were best buddies, raised by hand from chicks. Both were healthy and laying well, though slowing down in the heat. They were generally inseparable and friendly to us and each other. They're 18 months old.
The other hen, Poppy, had made two strange efforts at crowing the day before we left. (She just crowed again this morning, which is why I'm awake.)
There are feathers all over the yard where the ark was. Bea's in the freezer pending burial under the apple tree; I can't bring myself to look at her, yet, but my nurse friend says she's missing feathers on her neck and her skull is picked, too.
The birds may have ingested pesticides, as the same boy mentioned above has fed them beetles out of a bag-trap, in spite of the giant sign warning *not* to do so that we put on our garage (and we told his parents, too). It's been okay for weeks and the birds haven't shown signs of illness from the few cups he fed them, but the petsitter found a heap of beetles in the ark, so the boy was disobeying us and his parents in our absence.
We wonder if the pesticides have caused sex-characteristic changes/aggression if their toxic load has been increasing without our knowing. We fed the hens hand-picked beetles from our garden and Poppy always eats more bugs than Bea did; she's just faster.
Poppy, today, is nervous (probably the result of being alone). The chickensitter thought Poppy seemed nervous and confused when she found Bea mangled, too.
That's the end of the clue list.
We had thought to get another bird or two, maybe even chicks to graft, but if Poppy is the culprit, we may rethink this.
Does anyone have any ideas? Can you help us solve the mystery? Should we get more hens? Should I put a padlock on my back gate?
Reading everyone's threads here about the great lengths they've gone to for injured chickens makes me sick to think that we might have euthanized her unnecessarily. If we had been home, I'd have tried to nurse her, but from far away we had to take someone else's assessment of the situation and couldn't spend hundreds of dollars. I'm starting to regret going to the family reunion at all, which is neurotic.
Sad, sad, sad.
Thanks, friends,
Kerri
One of our two chickens is dead. The death isn't actually a mystery, because we had her euthanized, but the events leading up to her death are really confusing.
Just got back from a family reunion out of state. While there, we got a call from the chickensitter saying she'd found our Ameracauna, Bea, unresponsive in the nest box of our ark. The hen was missing a few feathers and was bleeding from inside her mouth/eye. From across the country, we couldn't know enough to make a good decision, but the vet said that the bird was suffering and the prognosis wasn't looking good and that she'd have to run $500 worth of tests to see what was going on, only perhaps to have to euthanize the hen anyway. It broke our hearts, but we had her put down.
Immediately, I had suspected the boy next store (who was watering our gardens while we were away) of fussing with the coop and somehow getting himself in chicken-related trouble. He's done this before, and I thought this time maybe he'd accidentally harmed one of the hens.
Now, I'm starting to suspect Poppy of killing Bea.
Here are some elements of the circumstances:
This hen and one other lived in our back yard. They were best buddies, raised by hand from chicks. Both were healthy and laying well, though slowing down in the heat. They were generally inseparable and friendly to us and each other. They're 18 months old.
The other hen, Poppy, had made two strange efforts at crowing the day before we left. (She just crowed again this morning, which is why I'm awake.)
There are feathers all over the yard where the ark was. Bea's in the freezer pending burial under the apple tree; I can't bring myself to look at her, yet, but my nurse friend says she's missing feathers on her neck and her skull is picked, too.
The birds may have ingested pesticides, as the same boy mentioned above has fed them beetles out of a bag-trap, in spite of the giant sign warning *not* to do so that we put on our garage (and we told his parents, too). It's been okay for weeks and the birds haven't shown signs of illness from the few cups he fed them, but the petsitter found a heap of beetles in the ark, so the boy was disobeying us and his parents in our absence.
We wonder if the pesticides have caused sex-characteristic changes/aggression if their toxic load has been increasing without our knowing. We fed the hens hand-picked beetles from our garden and Poppy always eats more bugs than Bea did; she's just faster.
Poppy, today, is nervous (probably the result of being alone). The chickensitter thought Poppy seemed nervous and confused when she found Bea mangled, too.
That's the end of the clue list.
We had thought to get another bird or two, maybe even chicks to graft, but if Poppy is the culprit, we may rethink this.
Does anyone have any ideas? Can you help us solve the mystery? Should we get more hens? Should I put a padlock on my back gate?
Reading everyone's threads here about the great lengths they've gone to for injured chickens makes me sick to think that we might have euthanized her unnecessarily. If we had been home, I'd have tried to nurse her, but from far away we had to take someone else's assessment of the situation and couldn't spend hundreds of dollars. I'm starting to regret going to the family reunion at all, which is neurotic.
Sad, sad, sad.
Thanks, friends,
Kerri
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