virgo91182
In the Brooder
Hello everyone,
My name is Dawn and my husband's name is Jacob. We just became a part of this website, mainly because we have some questions about our chickens that we're hoping someone can answer.
We have 6 white leg horn pullets. We purchased them on 3/17/13 when they were a week old. They are AMAZING chickens with delicious eggs. We raised them in our house in the basement (in a small, confined space, of course) until they were about 2.5 months old and we moved them into our outdoor chicken coop. They started laying around July 2013 and we were getting 6 eggs a day, every day. Then in the winter of 2013/2014 we were only getting 1-4 eggs a day, sometimes none. Then in the summer of 2014 we encountered basically the same thing. We were and are still to this day almost never getting 6 eggs a day.
Last week Wednesday my husband went out to get eggs and check on their food/water when he noticed one of the chickens had all her feathers missing around her butt area. He also said she had bloody feces and it looked like her inner body parts were coming out of her rear-end. He tried to catch her to look further into it but they're very flighty birds. She wasn't acting sick or sluggish in any matter, she just did not look good from the back-end. Well when he went out to check on her the next day, she was unfortunately dead. She passed away in one of the spots where they lay eggs. The worst part was one of the other chickens was laying over here with the saddest eyes imaginable. (Nobody can say animals don't have feelings, because they do!)
Now here we are, almost a week later with only 5 chickens left, and it looks like another chicken is starting to have the same symptoms as the one who passed away. She's losing her feathers around her back end and had some bloody stools yesterday. We are unsure if it's the one who was laying on top of the dead chicken last week because we don't have them tagged in any way to tell them apart.
I'm just wondering if anyone who has raised chickens before has come across this issue? We've talked to several people who have raised chickens and they're stumped. What's pretty obvious to us is if another chicken is having the same symptoms as the chicken who passed away, it must be something contagious and they all might have it, in which case that would be devastating.
These chickens are in a coop where absolutely nothing can get in to hurt or expose them to anything, not even a mouse. It's a HUGE coop but sealed up well (with doors we open up daily to get them their sunshine, which is rare right now because we live in Michigan and it's gloomy and snowy here during this time of year) and they do have an outdoor pen we open up for them (when it's not snowing or freezing cold out) and that pen is also fenced in top to bottom where nothing can get in and they can't get out.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to give as much information about our chickens as possible to avoid any "well do you do this, do they have that, etc" questions about them. We would just really love some answers as to what may have caused this illness that one died from and another is possibly suffering from. We've seen what they look like when they're molting, and this is completely different.
Any thoughts? Thank you in advance!
~Dawn
My name is Dawn and my husband's name is Jacob. We just became a part of this website, mainly because we have some questions about our chickens that we're hoping someone can answer.
We have 6 white leg horn pullets. We purchased them on 3/17/13 when they were a week old. They are AMAZING chickens with delicious eggs. We raised them in our house in the basement (in a small, confined space, of course) until they were about 2.5 months old and we moved them into our outdoor chicken coop. They started laying around July 2013 and we were getting 6 eggs a day, every day. Then in the winter of 2013/2014 we were only getting 1-4 eggs a day, sometimes none. Then in the summer of 2014 we encountered basically the same thing. We were and are still to this day almost never getting 6 eggs a day.
Last week Wednesday my husband went out to get eggs and check on their food/water when he noticed one of the chickens had all her feathers missing around her butt area. He also said she had bloody feces and it looked like her inner body parts were coming out of her rear-end. He tried to catch her to look further into it but they're very flighty birds. She wasn't acting sick or sluggish in any matter, she just did not look good from the back-end. Well when he went out to check on her the next day, she was unfortunately dead. She passed away in one of the spots where they lay eggs. The worst part was one of the other chickens was laying over here with the saddest eyes imaginable. (Nobody can say animals don't have feelings, because they do!)
Now here we are, almost a week later with only 5 chickens left, and it looks like another chicken is starting to have the same symptoms as the one who passed away. She's losing her feathers around her back end and had some bloody stools yesterday. We are unsure if it's the one who was laying on top of the dead chicken last week because we don't have them tagged in any way to tell them apart.
I'm just wondering if anyone who has raised chickens before has come across this issue? We've talked to several people who have raised chickens and they're stumped. What's pretty obvious to us is if another chicken is having the same symptoms as the chicken who passed away, it must be something contagious and they all might have it, in which case that would be devastating.
These chickens are in a coop where absolutely nothing can get in to hurt or expose them to anything, not even a mouse. It's a HUGE coop but sealed up well (with doors we open up daily to get them their sunshine, which is rare right now because we live in Michigan and it's gloomy and snowy here during this time of year) and they do have an outdoor pen we open up for them (when it's not snowing or freezing cold out) and that pen is also fenced in top to bottom where nothing can get in and they can't get out.
Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to give as much information about our chickens as possible to avoid any "well do you do this, do they have that, etc" questions about them. We would just really love some answers as to what may have caused this illness that one died from and another is possibly suffering from. We've seen what they look like when they're molting, and this is completely different.
Any thoughts? Thank you in advance!
~Dawn
and Welcome To BYC! Sorry about your losses 
Hope you are able to figure out what is going on.
