- Aug 21, 2014
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We sadly lost our rooster the other morning. He was a really big and beautiful Welsummer, and the master of 8 hen ladies. He was only 1 year and 3 months old!! He has been healthy, active and well, right up until the moment he died, as far as we could ever tell. Our chicken run/yard runs very close and right along the back of our small yard and house with all windows, for full chicken and roo watching all day. All was well, and our rooster certainly seemed healthy.
So we were shocked when we suddenly lost him the other morning, in a strange incident. I wanted to tell you all about it, so maybe you could please share your thoughts, and help us figure out the possibilities of what happened here.
First, he did wear a No-Crow collar. (*No debates, please!) I tell you that, because we think MAYBE (?) it had something to do with his death. We can't really figure out how though. We just aren't sure. It's important to know, though:
**** His collar had not been adjusted or tightened in well over month. There was definitely pinky-finger space between the collar and his neck, because we double-check that all of the time. ****
As a brief background, we only had him wear one just to cut the volume of is often VERY EARLY crow some; because he was LOUD. We are right next to neighbors. But ironically, our neighbors all say they love to hear him crowing. We were just so conscience about it. Without the collar, he was too loud for US!! And we knew: one complaint around here, and we'd have to get rid of him. That said, he crowed pretty loud anyway, and all of the time. Although not quite as loud, or long, with the collar. His crow kind of choked out early, and we did notice that (more?) the week of his death.
As he was the morning he died. Usually when my husband is getting ready for work in the morning and hears the rooster start crowing, he goes right out and lets him and the chickens out of the coop into the run. And the rooster usually got preoccupied being out, and would stop crowing. But this morning, my husband was didn't go out right away. He decided to just do it on the way out the door, before he got in his truck to leave. It would only be 20 minutes more or so. He had heard him crowing as usual though.
In that time, my youngest daughter was up in her room at the back of the house, and the coop is right outside her bedroom window. She heard a big disruption in the coop; hens all flying around and squawking. So she came right down and turned on our in-house coop monitor to see what was going on - and she could see a big dark thing thing on the coop floor. She called over my husband, who was right at the counter having coffee and reading his prayer book. My husband ran right out there and opened the coop doors, and there was a roo, laying dead under the roosts.
He scooped him right up, and he was even still warm! Whatever happened, JUST happened. But there was nothing he could do.
He did have some foam around his mouth. So we are guessing that is a sign of some form of choking. Did he choke on his own crow? Did he maybe not be able to catch his breathe, and pass out? Maybe.....break his neck when he fell off the roost? We just don't understand.
My husband loved that rooster. He is really feeling guilty, and beating himself up about not going out there right away in the morning, as he usually did. We are feeling like now, if we don't live in an area where a rooster can crow as loud and long as he wants, maybe we shouldn't have a rooster.
>> But just to note: This rooster came in a batch of 8 vent-sexed chicks (to be sure we got all females) a year and and 3 months ago, and TWO turned out to be roosters! We found the other a good home, and kept this one. It was working out ok, until this.
Thanks for your time, thoughts and knowledge
RIP - 'Weymouth'
So we were shocked when we suddenly lost him the other morning, in a strange incident. I wanted to tell you all about it, so maybe you could please share your thoughts, and help us figure out the possibilities of what happened here.
First, he did wear a No-Crow collar. (*No debates, please!) I tell you that, because we think MAYBE (?) it had something to do with his death. We can't really figure out how though. We just aren't sure. It's important to know, though:
**** His collar had not been adjusted or tightened in well over month. There was definitely pinky-finger space between the collar and his neck, because we double-check that all of the time. ****
As a brief background, we only had him wear one just to cut the volume of is often VERY EARLY crow some; because he was LOUD. We are right next to neighbors. But ironically, our neighbors all say they love to hear him crowing. We were just so conscience about it. Without the collar, he was too loud for US!! And we knew: one complaint around here, and we'd have to get rid of him. That said, he crowed pretty loud anyway, and all of the time. Although not quite as loud, or long, with the collar. His crow kind of choked out early, and we did notice that (more?) the week of his death.
As he was the morning he died. Usually when my husband is getting ready for work in the morning and hears the rooster start crowing, he goes right out and lets him and the chickens out of the coop into the run. And the rooster usually got preoccupied being out, and would stop crowing. But this morning, my husband was didn't go out right away. He decided to just do it on the way out the door, before he got in his truck to leave. It would only be 20 minutes more or so. He had heard him crowing as usual though.
In that time, my youngest daughter was up in her room at the back of the house, and the coop is right outside her bedroom window. She heard a big disruption in the coop; hens all flying around and squawking. So she came right down and turned on our in-house coop monitor to see what was going on - and she could see a big dark thing thing on the coop floor. She called over my husband, who was right at the counter having coffee and reading his prayer book. My husband ran right out there and opened the coop doors, and there was a roo, laying dead under the roosts.
He scooped him right up, and he was even still warm! Whatever happened, JUST happened. But there was nothing he could do.
He did have some foam around his mouth. So we are guessing that is a sign of some form of choking. Did he choke on his own crow? Did he maybe not be able to catch his breathe, and pass out? Maybe.....break his neck when he fell off the roost? We just don't understand.
My husband loved that rooster. He is really feeling guilty, and beating himself up about not going out there right away in the morning, as he usually did. We are feeling like now, if we don't live in an area where a rooster can crow as loud and long as he wants, maybe we shouldn't have a rooster.
>> But just to note: This rooster came in a batch of 8 vent-sexed chicks (to be sure we got all females) a year and and 3 months ago, and TWO turned out to be roosters! We found the other a good home, and kept this one. It was working out ok, until this.
Thanks for your time, thoughts and knowledge
RIP - 'Weymouth'
