Unexplainable death?

[Martin12]

Hoping someone may have a clue of what happened. A week ago we adopted five 1 year old hens that seemed to be in beautiful health. Our favorite one was an Ameracauna who seemed to be the best layer of all the ones we adopted. She the only one who laid daily and had a wonderful temperament. Well last night when I went to shut the coop up she was laying in her nest box (which I don't usually like them sleeping in.) Well today she wouldn't get out so we thought maybe she was trying to sit. She ended up getting out one time to get a drink then jumped back in a different box. Today was the first day she didn't lay since we had her and thought that was strange. Well when I just went to shut the coop up for the night she was laying on the floor dead and we haven't a clue what could have caused this. We do live in Georgia so it's pretty hot but all our chickens have access to unlimited fresh water and I don't really think this has to do with heat but idk. I'm pretty sad as this chicken quickly became our favorite. Any ideas?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

No way to tell without other symptoms or a necropsy with full lab work. If you lose another soon be prepared to get a necropsy.
There's about 20 different things that can cause sudden death at that age.
Since you just got them, you probably don't know how they were managed or fed in their first year.
As I said, it could be almost anything but one thing I consider is visceral gout. There aren't symptoms until the last 24 hours. It is usually from being fed layer feed at too young of age.

 

[Martin12]

Well I have another chicken doing the same thing today so we are keeping a close eye on her. She had watery poop and I read that could be caused by the extreme heat. So I'm afraid my other hen died of heat exhaustion. It had been in the high 90s the past few days. It's iust so confusing because the have access to unlimited water, plenty of shade, and even the coop at any time. So o don't know what I could do differently.

 

[rides2far]

I have fans in the windows of the coop & a large box fan for the run. Since it can get to triple digits here, we also put misters in the run. You can give cold treats & place frozen water bottles in the nesting boxes. You can also put ice in their drinking water. If your region is very humid, the misters might not be a good idea, but the other strategies should help. Good luck with your hens, I hope the rest are OK.