What could have killed her?

[ElioraImmanuel]

We lost a Light Brahma last night. She was found, legs up, with a spot of blood on her head. One eye completely closed the other half open (I don't know if that matters). She was not egg bound, her crop was not impacted and there was no illness. All the chickens appeared normal last night and all appear normal this morning, death aside. All are eating, drinking etc. There is no wheezing, sneezing, smelly poop, discharge....nothing.

I am at a loss to figure out what happened. Our chickens do all roost in the rafters of the barn with are about 7 feet off the barn floor. Do chickens spontaneously fall? They have perfectly fabulous roosts on the floor, but refuse to use them. If they can fall off a roost, why would that occur? Help?

 

[emys]

Vampire bats! (Just kidding)



If none of your other chickens were particularly alarmed this morning, then I would suspect something internal. She could have had a heart attack. You could autopsy and look for an enlarged heart or enlarged fatty liver.

 

[GreenGoddess]

Quote:
I would have definitely done a necropsy if she was otherwise fine.. It may just be that while trying to get up on the roost, she missed, lost her balance or another got in her way and hit her head on the rafter.. if you saw a spot of blood, I would start there to see if there was any injury beneath the feathers.. I had something similar happen a few nights ago (although mine only roost about 4-5 ft off the floor) and after doing a necropsy, there was nothing wrong internally except for a very fatty gizzard (was told that was pretty normal for backyard flocks) and blood clots in the lungs (was told could be caused from sudden death).. After watching my other chickens come off the roost to "greet" me when i went outside, they do land right in front of the nest boxes when they "fly" down so I am about 98% positive she came off the roost to greet me when I came home and either lost her balance or misjudged, running straight into the nest box... I'm going to fix that problem by moving the nest box to the other end of the coop to prevent this from happening again but until now, it's never been a problem...

Unfortunately, a chicken's head is actually very sensitive and it does not take much to cause injury... I learned this when my main roo started to mount the girls and would grab the back of their head.. When he got off, the girls would walk backwards as if they were drunk and were very disoriented.. It would take them a few minutes to gain their composure.. It scared the dickens out of me the first few times I saw it but after about 2 weeks, he finally got the hang of it and I haven't had a problem since...

Goddess

 

[ElioraImmanuel]

Jumba, so named because she was rather large will be missed. My oldest DD is the one who is very in tune w/our chickens and she believes that Jumba fell off the roost for one reason or another. My 5 y/o was very distraught this morning when he found out. He's very sensitive. The other choocks are still doing wonderfully. Although, I'm sure they miss being out all day long, fre ranging. We're praying that this is just an isolated incident.