Our little flock

[meowoui]

I just went out tonight about 7:30 to shut the coop door and found the chickens clucking quietly I looked down on the floor and found my oldest girl had passed away she had not even had started her chance to lay eggs
We do not know what happened to her I did not find any wounds nor bleeding I think she went in to go to sleep and died in her sleep for eyes were closed she had not been gone long she was still a little warm. She was always the first one in a nesting box but the last few nights she slept on the bottom of a shelve. I tried to keep water in the coop as well in a bucket with nipples we tried to keep up the apples and pears. They have a automatic feeder in the coop I cleaned out their boxes everyday cleaned the floor of the coop every few days. I am wondering if the rice hulls on the floor that the feed store told us was ok to put on the floor.

I hope the other five will be OK.

Karen

 

[Kelsie2290]

Sorry to hear about your girl. As long as your other girls are acting fine and seem OK, it was probably just a problem with the individual pullet. Like older girls, sometimes the girls that are just getting ready to lay will have problems and wind up with internal laying or peritonitis etc even if they have not even laid an egg. It seems to happen more with hatchery birds that are bred for high egg production. I've had this happen a couple of times when we found a pol pullet just dead, and when we looked to see what was going on, there was something not right with their reproductive/egg laying system.

 

[meowoui]

Thank you very much I was feeling guilty thinking that she died because of starving. We went back to where we bought our hens and told them what we have been doing and come to find out we should not have been giving them oyster shell and lime stone until they started to lay eggs,so Tara could have died from being bound up, I should have known better when they guy at the feed store said "I don't know anything about chickens that much" it was a red flag and walk away. We are trying to keep the other girls from bounding up took away the oyster/lime giving starter grit and apple cider vinegar in the water and a bunch of other stuff, this time I know that if the hens are not in their usual spot for sleeping that is a sign something is probably wrong. Tara always slept in a certain nesting box but for the past few days she stopped getting into her box. I will keep you up dated on the other hens.

Already attached Karen

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hope the rest of your girls do fine and give you lots of eggs. They do tend to get into habits don't they, it is amazing how much personality they have as individuals. Were you feeding them layer food, or did you just have oyster shell on the side for them?

 

[meowoui]

We gave them r giving them something called payback that looks like mash. Yes we gave them oyster/lime on the side. My bro-in-law said you never ever give hens lime he never has in his 28yrs. raising hens.


Yes I like how the RIR runs up to us to see what we r doing or what we want.

Karen