Post mortem - found healthy hen dead this morning with egg near her

[Horse Chick]

Yeah I've been checking through other threads and what keeps popping out at me is strain from laying or heart attack. I'll never know for sure but I want to make sure my husbandry practices are not endangering the other girls. This hen was fine, no unusual behavior and since it was the weekend I spent a lot of time with them yesterday.

I had chickens as a kid and they were never cared for so diligently as this flock is. I am trying to keep things as natural and organic as possible so I use DE for their dirt baths and for digestion to prevent parasites internal and external. I also bed them well in the coop with pine shavings, even in the nesting boxes as I've read hay can house parasites. The coop is stripped every Sunday, it has a linoleum floor and is mopped with simple hot water and mild soap, along with their wooden perches, dried and then restocked with new bedding, about 3-4 inches thick. Nesting boxes are stripped weekly too. Food and water containers are kept clean, only use hot water if they get nasty and pen is raked daily or if not daily due to bad weather then every 2 days.

 

[mtnviewfarms]

Sorry about your hen. When we only had Barred Rocks I found one of our 18 month old BR hens dead in the early afternoon when I went to
do my second 'egg pickup of the day. She was still warm so had just expired. I had never had a healthy robust bird just 'drop dead' before so
I was pretty freaked out. Talked to many poultry owners who told me that sometimes they just die suddenly w/o overt cause apparent. I checked
her body over well and there was no trauma or disease process visible. I worried for days that she had some terrible contagion that the others
in the flock would contract and that in spite of our 'rigorous to a fault' biosecurity measures. Not to worry though, all the other birds were fine.

This did happen again two years later when I was raising Wellies that I got as 2 wk old chicks. They all ( 24 of them ) seemed very healthy at
three months of age - all eating and foraging well, etc. - no signs of any problems at all then one day found one of the pullets dead in the coop.
About two weeks later another dead pullet in the run. No signs of what caused the deaths and I examined both birds externally quite extensively.

Now all birds are 5-6 months of age and healthy and beginning to lay with no further deaths or signs of ill health at all. I guess sometimes we will
never know.

Prevention of health problems goes a long way. I feed premium layer pellets that contain both pre and probiotics, black oil sunflower seed, marigold
flowers and other organics from the field and garden, organic golden flax seed and I add ACV to their water every day. Also have calcium available too.