Found one of my three SL Wyandotte sisters dead beside the house this morning. We locked them up early yesterday due to high winds and rain-Lacy always comes to the shaking scratch can, never have to go find her. We didn't do a good head count, sadly, because of the blowing rain. She was near a dust wallow they used under the deck, very stiff, not a mark on her, completely intact. My Dh wanted to do a necropsy on her and we looked her over well. She had not one single puncture mark, nothing. When we opened her up, we found beautiful healthy organs, future intact egg yolks, no shells, but her abdomen did have a bunch of yolk loose in it. She never showed any signs of illness at all, no hunching, nothing, and I think she had been laying in the last week, albeit thinshelled eggs perhaps. She seemed bright eyed and beautiful as always. We concluded that she was laying internally, if that's the correct term. That yolk was definitely in the wrong place.
I believe she died yesterday, not during the night, because I never saw her walking around trying to get into the pen with the others like I would expect her to. I just never went to the other side of the house in the storm, so she probably just died over in the dust hole from an egg problem. With all our predators, nothing even chewed on her, thank goodness. That made is easier.
Lacy was my "Yes Girl". She had a little girl voice and when you talked to her, she'd bob her head and say, 'uh-HUH' in that tiny cute way. She was bossy with the girls at the feeder, but always squatted for a scratch from mom or dad. We'll miss you Lacy.
Edited it add: Lacy had just turned two years old in January, one of my original flock.
I believe she died yesterday, not during the night, because I never saw her walking around trying to get into the pen with the others like I would expect her to. I just never went to the other side of the house in the storm, so she probably just died over in the dust hole from an egg problem. With all our predators, nothing even chewed on her, thank goodness. That made is easier.
Lacy was my "Yes Girl". She had a little girl voice and when you talked to her, she'd bob her head and say, 'uh-HUH' in that tiny cute way. She was bossy with the girls at the feeder, but always squatted for a scratch from mom or dad. We'll miss you Lacy.
Edited it add: Lacy had just turned two years old in January, one of my original flock.
