My poor Seamus (blue cochin on the right) was crowing and vying for the best position to get a crumb of bread. He seemed just fine. Seamus hopped from his coop and walked around for a couple of minutes. Then all of a sudden he seemed to lose control. He stumbled a couple of feet into the side of the garage, and his head went down. The other roosters sensed his weakness immediately and associated the head down, rear up with mating. Two of them attempted to mount him, which I have NEVER seen them do before with each other. I ran over and picked him up before they could really get on top of him. When I put him in his coop right there, he was on his side convulsing, kicking wood shavings all over. I scooped him up right away, and his head seemed to be going limp. He made a kind of involuntary sound, its hard to describe, like a groan. Then he died in my arms. This all happened within a couple of minutes.
Has anyone ever witnessed something like this before?
I will miss Seamus. He had the deepest melodic crow. He had already cheated death once, when a wandering dog chased and bit him, but only got a mouthful of feathers before I slapped the dog back and rescued my roo.
