Unexpected death, no apparent previous symptoms

[rhode_island_brunette]

I went to check on the chickens and collect eggs 2 nights ago, and found one chicken laying down not wanting to get up. I see these chickens and check on them multiple times a day. I noticed no previous symptoms. We put her alone in a hospital cage with food and water close to her. We put a brinsea heater above her because we had some cold temperatures that night, but not below freezing or anything. Her comb/wattle were bright red as normal, but she didn't want to get up. She seemed lethargic/sleepy. That was her only symptom! Everything else seemed normal! My husband checked in her vent and there was no stuck egg. She died overnight. What happened to my chicken? None of the other chickens are displaying any symptoms of anything. We did have some rainy cool days, but they always have access to plenty of shelter inside and outside the coop. I've thought of egg bound, worms, a respiratory illness due to the wet cold, but she had no symptoms of these things except the lethargy and death. Those are obviously major symptoms, but I have no indication of what could've caused them! Any hints or stories of your own to help?

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. Sorry for your sudden loss. How old was your chicken? Do you still have her body? Was she laying eggs? Did her crop seem full or empty, hard or puffy? Were there any signs of mites or lice on the body? When I lose a chicken I will usually do a home necropsy to look at the abdominal organs for anything unusual. There are many videos online to help identify organs. In a young chicken, cancer, a reproductive disorder, crop or gizzard impaction, or heart ailment could be possible. The best way to determine the cause would be to keep the body cold, and take it in to your state vet lab for a necropsy. Being Friday, they could do it today, but usually the body needs to arrive M-F during business hours for best results. Some labs will send a prepaid shipping label for overnight shipping through Fedex or UPS. Here is a list of mist state vets in your area:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

 

[rhode_island_brunette]

My chicken was only about 2 years old. I do not have her body, I was concerned about disease so we disposed of it. We did inspect it before disposition, and before she died as much as possible. We couldn't tell much about the crop by the time she was sick, she was very limp and it was difficult to tell. She was one of 13 black australorps, so sadly I don't know if she specifically was laying eggs. We were getting slightly less eggs, but they are beginning to molt, so I didn't think much of it. We had one day where we only got 4 eggs, but that happens if a snake gets in or if there was bad weather and the chickens didn't want to come out from under the coop to go in and lay. I appreciate the list of vets though, this is good advice for if it happens again. I hope this was specific to this chicken, and isn't something that could affect all of them. That is one of the main things I'm trying to determine. I am watching them carefully, but I want to know if there is anything I should be doing proactively. Should I maybe worm them? I saw no symptoms of worms in that chicken or in their droppings, but obviously lethargy and death are symptoms of worms. I just wish I had more indication of those if worms are the problem. We've never had problems with worms before.

 

[Eggcessive]

What is your climate like? Worming is something that you might want to do once or twice a year, with something safe like Valbazen or SafeGuard. However, if you could get some fresh droppings collected in a ziplock bag, and ask your vet to run a fecal float, that would be helpful. You cannot see worm eggs without a microscope. Sometimes if there are a lot of worms, we may see large roundworms in the poop. If your chickens are all active, coming outside to free range, eating and drinking, I would just observe them. I like to check out the poops under the roost, for anything unusual. Occaionally, you might want to pick them up feel for any weight loss, look them over for tiny bugs, and feel of their crops. If any hang back in the coop or on the roost in early moning, that can be a sign of a possible illness.

 

[rhode_island_brunette]

There was one hanging out in the coop...haven't seen that today that. Could've been that chicken. She would sit on the roosting bars. I saw on another post something about algae poisoning. They did drink from my sheep's water trough, but haven't had access to that for over a week now. We clean that out religiously, but it is possible for algae to develop quickly. Thoughts?

 

[Eggcessive]

It’s best if they have clean water every day. But they will even drink out of mud puddles sometimes.

 

[rhode_island_brunette]

Yes, they have their own waterer, out of the sun, with the spouts that you push the button and water comes out. It's also go a cover. They just got into the sheep waterer. We've made it impossible to get to now.

 

[rhode_island_brunette]

And I walked around checking for puddles. I don't see any, but it doesn't mean there weren't any the other day that could've dried up now.