one of my chickens looks like it EXPLODED!

[Sherm]

So, it was a nice sunny relatively warm winter day, all chickens were roaming around my backyard and happy. A half hour later I went to the coop to collect eggs and noticed one (white leghorn) was in the nesting area DEAD. What's more, it looked like a scene in a horror movie: there was blood splattered on the walls and ceiling. There was a lot of blood coming from out of it's beak.. so it spit the blood up.

Any thoughts on what happened??

 

[ChickenCanoe]

feathers scattered?
predator?

 

[Sherm]

Some more information:

No, no way it was a predator. I was in and around the backyard and would've noticed. They were strolling around outside of their coop, and they come back in to lay eggs. I have six chickens, all are 10 mos. old. All have been perfectly healthy until now. We live in Oregon, weather is mild.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

A mink or weasel can sneak in bite the neck of a chicken and kill it before the chicken knows what's happened and sneak away before you know it. They're tiny, fast, stealthy and brutal killers.

A chicken going in to lay an egg can't just explode. Whatever splattered blood was a traumatic event.

 

[Sherm]

there was no blood on the feathers, no broken skin. All the blood came from inside/ mouth/ beak. No feathers anywhere. Just looked like it spit up blood (everywhere) and died.