Sudden Death of Two Hens

[Fantasma]

I came home from work today to find two of my seven chickens dead with no obvious signs of injury or illness. The only indication that anything might be going on was that one of them did not return to the run last night. I picked her up, placed her on the roost, and locked them all up for the night.

They are both less than a year old. They were generally laying fine, though I don't recall seeing any of the eggs that I've been attributing to those two in the past day or so. What are the chances they were both egg-bound at the same time?

Any ideas on what may have happened? I definitely want to make certain the remaining chickens are going to be okay.

 

[Jimmy_WI]

I came home from work today to find two of my seven chickens dead with no obvious signs of injury or illness. The only indication that anything might be going on was that one of them did not return to the run last night. I picked her up, placed her on the roost, and locked them all up for the night.

They are both less than a year old. They were generally laying fine, though I don't recall seeing any of the eggs that I've been attributing to those two in the past day or so. What are the chances they were both egg-bound at the same time?

Any ideas on what may have happened? I definitely want to make certain the remaining chickens are going to be okay.

Very coincidental that you just posted this. I just had the same thing happen with one of my Red Stars. Since it is so similar I’ll share mine from today. Yesterday she was running around the yard, eating just fine. This morning when I went to open the coop she was the first one out and came running up to me. I gave them a treat of some seed like I normally would. Around 10a I noticed they were not out. I opened the coop and she was sleeping which seemed odd. But it’s 32°, so I thought maybe she was just warming up. My other Star was just fine. I came home just now and found her dead, feet still curled around roost post, but she had crouched down. She was very warm and must have died within the last hour.

Nothing about her looked sick, she was running, eating, drinking just fine. I looked her over super good post mortum and could not find any issues whatsoever.

 

[Sara Swift]

I'm so sorry to hear this and gutted that it has happened to me this morning too. Our 6 month old Vorwerk has died in her sleep, she was absolutely fine yesterday sad but puzzled.