Mysterious chicken deaths

[MollyHSmith]

In the last month, two of my hens have randomly died. No external injuries at all, just appeared to have keeled over. I do live in Texas and it’s been HOT, but they have plenty of access to shade & multiple sources of water (and sometimes cold watermelon at the end of the day). This is also their second summer; they did fine last year.

My three remaining hens seem to be doing okay. They’re laying every day and have red combs. They have a LITTLE bit of poop around their vents, but it kinda looks like an accident more than anything.

Any clue as to what can just kill chickens like this?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry about your hens.

There are so many things that can go wrong.
Sadly, there's really no way to know what happened unless a necropsy is performed. If you happen to lose another in a short period of time refrigerate the body and send it to your state lab for analysis, this will give you the most information. If sending the bird in is not an option, you could perform your own informal investigation to see if you find anything obvious. If you decide to go that route, post photos of the internals and we may be able to help you with what you see.

You can find your lab in this link:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

Video of necropsy and labeled organs: