What do to after one of your flock members dies?

[Jessica241]

One sad chicken mama here,

We unfortunately have to put our sweet tessie down tomorrow morning due to her having a growth in her abdomen that is pressing on all her organs and making it hard for her to breathe :/

We have a small flock of 7 and she has a best friend Bonnie that she's Inseperable with that I'm sick to my stomach about how she is going to react when she realizes she's gone....

My question is- is it better for the passed flick mate to "disappear"? Of do we need to show her passed body to the rest of the flock so they understand what happened?

Thank you for any input!

**editing to add she has been deteriorating since Friday and has been inside since then with a couple trips outside to visit her sisters a few minutes a day as well as brining them in one by one to see her and give her some company. We found out that there is nothing more we can do for her after bringing her to the vet today and getting an X-ray that showed the growth- so her flockmstes do know she is not well.

 

[chickenlittle21]

It's better for her to disappear. If you were to show the flock her body they would be confused.

 

[chickenlittle21]

Here are some virtual hugs:

 

[Sonya9]

I had a similar incident recently and I would say let her friend see the body.

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but we added two chicks this spring and they are/were 14 weeks old. The young cockerel is afraid of his own shadow and very insecure and he spent all day every day with his hatchmate sister. He would call for her and look for her if she was out of site. She died unexpectedly 2 days ago (possible snake bite, not sure) and I found her body in the run.

He has not called or looked for her once. I think he saw her body and knew she was gone so there was no need to keep calling or searching.

 

[CluckerFamily]

Chickens seem to know when a member of the flock is sick or too sick. I have never taken a healthy chicken away from the flock so I can't speak about that. But I have had 2 members become very ill over the years and then I removed them from the flock to try to nurse them back. Maybe it helped my flock know they were really ill. I truly don't know.

 

[blissfulbirds]

So sorry about your sweet hen losing a chicken is always a sad day. I think there’s not much harm to the other chickens either way, but showing her might be best so they are less confused of where she went. The only times we have lost chickens was by a raccoon and an unexpected death in the coop, so the rest saw the body and seemed to go about their normal day afterwards. On the other hand, we rehomed a rooster not too long ago, so he disappeared from their point of view and their reaction was the same. In your case, if the two have a very close bond it might help the other to know where she went and not go calling for the other. Hope all goes as well as possible.

 

[Jessica241]

Thank you all for your replies- they do know that she is sick. We have had her inside syringe feeding her since Friday and just bring her out for a few minutes at a time throughout the day

Chickens seem to know when a member of the flock is sick or too sick. I have never taken a healthy chicken away from the flock so I can't speak about that. But I have had 2 members become very ill over the years and then I removed them from the flock to try to nurse them back. Maybe it helped my flock know they were really ill. I truly don't know.

Thank you for your reply- they know she is sick :/ we have been keeping her inside syringe feeding her since Friday and bringing her out a few minutes at a time to see her sisters. We were hoping she was going to pull through but the vet took an X-ray of her today and said that there would be no way to recover from this and didn't know if she would even make it through the night tonight. We would bring one in at a time throughout the weekend to see her so hopefully they understood :/

 

[Jessica241]

It's better for her to disappear. If you were to show the flock her body they would be confused.

Thank you for your insight! I think I may just bring her in to hang out before we have to go to the vet tomorrow so she can see her one last time and how sick she is :/

 

[Jessica241]

So sorry about your sweet hen losing a chicken is always a sad day. I think there’s not much harm to the other chickens either way, but showing her might be best so they are less confused of where she went. The only times we have lost chickens was by a raccoon and an unexpected death in the coop, so the rest saw the body and seemed to go about their normal day afterwards. On the other hand, we rehomed a rooster not too long ago, so he disappeared from their point of view and their reaction was the same. In your case, if the two have a very close bond it might help the other to know where she went and not go calling for the other. Hope all goes as well as possible.

Thank you so much for your response and so sorry for your losses too :/ This will be our first chicken loss so I'm a mess- these girls are my babies and these 2 have been partners in crime for 3 years :/

 

[Sonya9]

Thank you all for your replies- they do know that she is sick. We have had her inside syringe feeding her since Friday and just bring her out for a few minutes at a time throughout the day

Oh so her friend is already used to her being gone most of the time. That changes things, it wouldn't be a big sudden change if she "disappeared".