Silkie found dead in coop

[Joyness]

I just came to clean the coop and let my chickens out and found my 14 week old Silkie laying dead on the poo board beneath the roosting bars. She’s laying on her side, head on the side with legs stretched out and eyes closed.

I have no idea what could have caused this. I remember reading somewhere that body position could be an indication. I think she died in her sleep and fell off the roost.

It could be anything but I’m wondering if anyone has an idea based on what I’ve described.

Thank you

 

[sourland]

Hard to guess accurately - sadly sometimes it just happens. As long as she has not appeared ill it is probably not an infectious entity. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Joyness]

Thank you @sourland.

After I finished writing, as I cleaned the coop I thought more about it. We have 4 Guinea keets about the same age as Zsa Zsa, they grew up together but the last few weeks the keets have been becoming more and more pushy with the chickens. So much so that we’ve built a second coop that we’ll put on the opposite side of our 3 acres so they don’t see each other any more. The chickens mainly lay low, hiding under the coop or under the trees to avoid the keets. Yesterday I noticed Zsa Zsa wasn’t with the other chickens when they all came out of the “magical forest” that is next to the coop. And she’s usually the first to hop in the coop to roost, falling asleep before anyone else even gets up on the roosts. Last night I had to call her out from under the coop and bring her in. She seemed “normal” but now that I’m thinking about all the pieces maybe she was stressed? Maybe she was pecked by the keets and I didn’t see the injury? Maybe her heart just had enough of the stress of the keets and she had a heart attack?

I don’t know. It’s all about guessing I suppose.

I’m happy we’ll be relocating the keets today. I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner.