Rooster Sudden Death???

[akcskye]

Hey all.

As many of you know, I had to re-home 2 of my 3 roosters because they got into a HORRIBLE, bloody fight "to the death" about a week ago (juvenile roos, too!!!)

Well, the 3rd rooster, Andy, we kept to be the "Alpha" over the flock, figuring the 2 that fought so hard would possibly be aggressive to our children, too, if they ever challenged their "roo-ness".

I fed and watered them all today and left for about 5 hours to do basketball related things for my kid's teams.

I came back, and Andy was dead.

No warning, no symptoms, nothing. Looked like he must've "passed out" in the outer run and died.

We looked his body over for signs of pecking...none. His face was purple/blue, but we assume that was from the death, being his head was on the ground.

Christopher William (our roo who died in December), at least had symptoms, like fatigue and chills (we assume because we couldn't get to them for 3 days because of a downed, hot wire in our back yard, that the cold got the best of him), but is it possible that something was contageous and passed on (even though that's been a long time ago, I would think), or what?

Andy was just born in June of 2007...so other than what I mentioned above, or perhaps some internal injuries from the roo fight that we never saw...I'm totally clueless as to what happened.

I'm so sad...now we're ROO less.

 

[CarriBrown]

:aww
I'm sorry to hear about your boy. Is there a state lab you can take him to, or did you dispose of his body already?
Sometimes things just happen... they have birth defects and such and we never know what happened. But if you can get him to a lab for a necropsy, that would be your best bet. I hate not being able to bury them here, but I sleep better at night knowing exactly why they died.

 

[akcskye]

Unfortunately, we've already buried his body in the back yard, next to his father.

If I lose another chicken I'll save it's body for a necropsy...we have an agricultural extension office just about 5 miles away...so surely they'd have resources on who to send to.

Thanks

 

[CarriBrown]

Quote:
Yes, they will. And what you need to do is put the body in a bag and in the fridge. I use paper so I don't have to see it.

You can deliver the body up to 5 days after death as long as it's preserved that way. They do prefer that you bring it in ASAP, though.
Good luck, and I really hope this was a fluke and you have no more losses.