Sudden Chicken Death

[robynsroost]

Yesterday was a completely normal day in the coop. Morning treats of tomatoes, oats, and kale all delivered to 12 spoiled chickens. Clean water, clean coop, not a thing out of the ordinary. When I got home several hours later the same pattern of visiting the girls and Clyde to collect afternoon eggs only to find one of my hens dead in her nesting box. Everything looked normal, no blood, no feathers missing. The only odd thing was that she was in her nesting box when she died. There have been no signs of any illnesses in the flock, no diarrhea, and they all had the natural deworming pumpkin last week. We are diligent about clean water and natural apple cider vinegar, yogurt, eggshells, etc. Should I worry that this will hit the flock, or just assume it may have been an egg stuck, or just sudden chicken death. Any insight and feedback is so much appreciated!

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry for your loss.

Rather than worry, better to do your best to investigate, I reckon, so you can prevent it happening again.

If you're up to it or know someone who is, an autopsy is a very good idea; you don't need much experience to spot many internal problems, and it is all information you can't get any other way, which will ultimately stand your flock in good stead in future.

She may have died from any one of a number of things, nobody can offer you any guarantees of it being nothing to worry about when we simply can't tell without more information.

Also, greetings and

Pumpkin works sometimes and not other times, for various people, I believe it's due to a whole myriad of factors including commercial cultivars often having lessened or absent medicinal properties, but if you don't use a bit of a spectrum of wormers you can't guarantee you've gotten everything.

Like you I use natural wormers, but I don't rely on any one alone. Before the full moon, when the worms are moving into the intestines to reproduce, giving them something like cayenne powder on wholemeal bread with perhaps cold pressed olive oil or yoghurt to bind it to the bread will help shift and kill worms either too large to be killed by weaker wormers, or those that live in other body systems and aren't susceptible to wormers that only kill by being ingested.

During reproduction many worms do not eat so those which are like that have to be killed by external wormers i.e. cayenne burns their protective mucosal covering off, as well as burns their eggs.

ETA: what are you using as a cocci preventative? I don't know if ACV does that reliably, I use raw garlic for cocci preventative.

Best wishes.

 

[cafarmgirl]

How old are these birds? Have you checked them over carefully for mites or lice? Have they every been dewormed with a broad spectrum dewormer?

ACV and pumpkin/pumpkin seeds will not treat a worm infestation. Having some fecal samples tested would be a very good idea. A necropsy next time you loose a bird is also a very good idea. Necropsies done by a state lab are an excellent source of info. as they can also test for bacteria's, virus and other diseases that cannot be detected otherwise. I don't necropsy every single bird that dies but I have one done by my state lab once in a while so I know what's going on in my flock.