New member from Missouri

Cedar hill farmer

In the Brooder
Joined
Jan 21, 2018
Messages
5
Reaction score
18
Points
37
my name is Steve,
I live on 6 acres in rural Jefferson county Missouri with my wife of 26 years, my 90 year old dad, two rescued pit bulls and my 8, now 7 Buff Orphington hens. We have a large 1 acre garden and green house. I hunt deer which we process completely ourselves and we can and preserve most of our food.
We raised 12 chicks almost 6 years ago. During our first year we learned a lot about keeping our birds safe. A huge chicken hawk claimed the first victim, a dog claimed another and very nearly two. A couple of years passed with the the flock at ten and staying safe in newly fortified enclosure. At the two year old mark I found one of my hens listless and having seizures, despite trying to hydrate and warm she died in my arms. Later that year during one of multiple daily visits to the coop I found one of my girls had passed with no signs or indications. Now almost 4 years later I have lost a fifth hen leaving me at 7. I posted some questions on a thread regarding this bird.
These birds, like all my animals are family. I am sick wondering what could have happened.
I have viewed this site for many years and gotten so much info that I wanted to join and share and continue to learn.
Thanks,
Steve
 
Greetings Steve and welcome to BYC. So glad you finally joined the "fray" and can participate. I'm sorry to say, but what you are describing is more or less completely normal. The average age a large breed bird will live to is 4-6 years. Of course there will always be the one odd chicken that lives to 12 and many don't make it past their first (dogs, etc).

I don't think the bird jumping out of your arms caused the issue. It was probably already an issue when you picked her up as indicated by her posture and such when you did so.

I would recommend that you consider renewing your flock now, before the rest of the oldsters reach their time of departure. Since you obviously hunt and are more or less self sufficient, you might consider making use of the older birds for stew/broth/stock/canned meat once the younger ones are at POL. No sense wasting that resource if you have a mind to. I know it's difficult if they've become pets.

Anyway, please continue to browse around and make yourself at home. Feel free to post as/when you desire.
 
Hello fellow Missourian. I'm just a bit north east of you.
Are you familiar with our St. Louis backyard chicken meetup group? About 700 of us on there.
As for what is killing your birds, I highly recommend you send a recently passed bird to Mizzou vet school for necropsy and lab work. Then you'll know exactly what happened and how to progress from here.
If you call them, they'll send you a FedEx shipping label.
It is always worth it to me to know what happened.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom