sudden death of our hen

[mpflynn]

We are new chicken owners we’ve had hens for about 2 year but not had any health issues until our hen died yesterday & we wondered if we could get some wisdom from experienced chicken keepers. We woke up to one of our hens coming out of the coop looking sick. She had her head towards her chest and didnt want to eat just drink some water. She walked really slowly, she is our fattest chicken we call her big girl. My husband and I went out and she let us pick her right up which was really odd she didn’t even fight being carried. We brought her into the bathroom thinking maybe she was egg bound we began to fill her a warm epsom bath but as we felt her we realized she had a swollen area on her chest. Weve never had a sick chicken & didnt even know where her crop was! After a little research we realized it was an impacted crop. It was hard and she had no sour smelling breath. We read to administer coconut oil & massage her crop, and her crop went down so quickly! She closed her eyes and laid her head on my lap like she was asleep! We put her back in with the flock but removed the food. She just hunched down still though not acting normal, but she was pooping which we read was a good sign. Maybe 45 minutes or an hour later I felt her crop again and it seemed a little swollen again not like before but still worrying, it wasnt so hard like before, looking back I wonder if it had become sour crop. I brought her in and massaged her again and she fell asleep in my lap again.. but now I dont think she was sleeping but dying.. I laid her on a towel by the heater thinking she just needed to sleep it off but shortly after she had died laying there. It was so fast before noon she was dead! We wonder what we did wrong & if anyone has ideas of what might have happened? A few things to note: we live in town and they live in a seperated fenced part of our yard, sadly theres a lot of trash that mustve been buried in the soil or blows in so I wonder if maybe thats what she ate..we also have wood chips in their run my husband thinks maybe she ate a wood chip… we just dewormed the flock with febendazole capsules about 15 days ago & had noticed big girl seemed to have a very dirty butt/diahrea worse than the others. She had no other symptoms

 

[Purelychicks]

We are new chicken owners we’ve had hens for about 2 year but not had any health issues until our hen died yesterday & we wondered if we could get some wisdom from experienced chicken keepers. We woke up to one of our hens coming out of the coop looking sick. She had her head towards her chest and didnt want to eat just drink some water. She walked really slowly, she is our fattest chicken we call her big girl. My husband and I went out and she let us pick her right up which was really odd she didn’t even fight being carried. We brought her into the bathroom thinking maybe she was egg bound we began to fill her a warm epsom bath but as we felt her we realized she had a swollen area on her chest. Weve never had a sick chicken & didnt even know where her crop was! After a little research we realized it was an impacted crop. It was hard and she had no sour smelling breath. We read to administer coconut oil & massage her crop, and her crop went down so quickly! She closed her eyes and laid her head on my lap like she was asleep! We put her back in with the flock but removed the food. She just hunched down still though not acting normal, but she was pooping which we read was a good sign. Maybe 45 minutes or an hour later I felt her crop again and it seemed a little swollen again not like before but still worrying, it wasnt so hard like before, looking back I wonder if it had become sour crop. I brought her in and massaged her again and she fell asleep in my lap again.. but now I dont think she was sleeping but dying.. I laid her on a towel by the heater thinking she just needed to sleep it off but shortly after she had died laying there. It was so fast before noon she was dead! We wonder what we did wrong & if anyone has ideas of what might have happened? A few things to note: we live in town and they live in a seperated fenced part of our yard, sadly theres a lot of trash that mustve been buried in the soil or blows in so I wonder if maybe thats what she ate..we also have wood chips in their run my husband thinks maybe she ate a wood chip… we just dewormed the flock with febendazole capsules about 15 days ago & had noticed big girl seemed to have a very dirty butt/diahrea worse than the others. She had no other symptoms

do any of your chickens have unusual fecal coloring? (Orange, red, green diarrhea, etc.)

 

[Eggcessive]

Sometimes when I lose a hen I will do a home necropsy to look at the organs to see if something is obvious. She might have choked on crop contents after massaging the crop, but hard to know. Your state vet an also do a more complete necropsy if you keep the body cold wrapped up in a cooler on ice. Fatty liver disease is fairly common in fat hens. Crop issues can be a result of reproductive infection, internal, laying,,cancer, and water belly. If you do a necropsy, take pictures of organs to post here. Sorry for your loss. List of state vets here:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html