What do chickens do when they grieve?

[tweetzone86]

We unexpectedly lost a chicken yesterday to unknown causes (no signs of injury, however I can't afford a necropsy right now nor do I have the confidence to do one myself). Daughter found her deceased in the run yesterday morning. I am not sure why, but since the others were dust bathing, I sprayed everyone and the run and coop just now with poultry protector mite spray just in case.

Well, since we don't know why (very sudden yesterday they all looked fine) we've been keeping a very close eye on the rest of the chickens. Same daughter came running in with the news that another chicken was standing where we found the dead one yesterday with her tail down.

Now, we lost our first chicken (first flock, so this is really tough) a month or so ago to three screws and an open safety pin (she swallowed them when she got loose-apparently when I build part of the run wall and the door I must have dropped them and missed them), and the first signs something wasn't right was that her tail was down and she wasn't eating or active or drinking. I took her to the vet the next day, vet saw those foreign objects in the x-ray and we had to put her down.

So my daughter, upon seeing another tail down, was quite panicked (my two girls took both losses very, very hard). Now the chicken in question seems to be fine, tail up and active, so...

Is she ill, or is she mourning the loss of her friend? Do chickens point their tails down when they mourn? As I said, she seems fine now (and like the others, did not appreciate being sprayed down...)

REALLY hoping we don't have an illness running around! Praying for it too!

 

[aart]

Sorry for your loss...tough for the kids too.
Did the dead bird have a lot of mites?
If they do have bugs, get some permethrin as the PP won't eradicate an infestation.

I'm not of the opinion that birds 'mourn' like humans do, but when a flock member is removed they sense the change and often pecking order changes can create some unease.

Hard to know what made the bird die, but tail down stance is not good if it continues.

 

[tweetzone86]

Sorry for your loss...tough for the kids too.
Did the dead bird have a lot of mites?
If they do have bugs, get some permethrin as the PP won't eradicate an infestation.

I'm not of the opinion that birds 'mourn' like humans do, but when a flock member is removed they sense the change and often pecking order changes can create some unease.

Hard to know what made the bird die, but tail down stance is not good if it continues.

Her tail is no longer down, so I am thinking it was due to grieving the loss of a friend/flockmate. I did not see any right off, BUT that being said, my girls were so distraught and I was shocked too, as it was so out of the blue, and I checked her for wounds but did not look so closely for bugs before I bagged her up to get her out of sight of my girls.