One of my hens died quite quickly - possible causes?

[chickens345]

Hello chicken friends,
I have a backyard flock we’ve had about 10 years (losing some and adding new ones). I lost a hen today and I’m trying to get an idea of possible causes. She was roughly 4 years old. We were away for the weekend so unfortunately I did not get to observe her until today. I was in my run on Friday filling up the water containers and I do not recall noticing any odd behavior.

We noticed today she wasn’t moving much. Just laying down. When I examined her she was breathing heavily, very sluggish, wheezing a bit. Her vent looked ok, eyes looked ok. There was no discoloration or swelling of the comb or legs. No obvious wounds. After I had picked her up and laid her back down some fluid came out of her mouth. I don’t know about pooping bc I didn’t observe anything. She died within 10 minutes of me looking her over.

My chickens are in an inclosed coop/run. They don’t free range. I haven’t changed anything lately in their environment. I had cleaned their coop a few days prior to leaving but replaced pine shavings etc with the same things we always use. Other hens eating same food/water are fine. Egg production for flock overall seems fine. The last time we introduced new chickens to our flock was about 3 months ago and they were raised from babies in a separate area.

Any ideas for me? I’m watching my flock closely for signs of any issues. I do have one hen I noticed is missing some feathers on her butt and has a bald area but I examined her and did not find any damaged skin or pests.

Thank you.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry to hear about your hen.

Unfortunately it's hard to know why a hen dies suddenly. If you still have the body, then refrigerate it and send it to your state lab for more information.
Alternately, if you are up to it, you can perform your own informal necropsy, taking a look at the organs, etc. and see if there's anything obvious to note. If you choose to examine further, take photos and we'll try to help you with what you see.

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

 

[chickens345]

Thank you for the link. I did not think to keep the body but will do that next time we aren’t sure of causes. I did discover this morning that my hens have mites, but it seems to be a mild infestation and I only noticed because I was inspecting them more closely than usual due to the loss. I don’t think they are the cause of her death. The rest of my hens appear healthy today so hopefully it was nothing contagious. Now on to treating mites