What happened?

[crazychickenlady81]

if the other pullets got to her, there would be pecking spots on your Ruth, many of them.. i am so sorry for your loss, i know nothing will bring her back, but i hope someone on here has some answers for you.. it does seem mysterious..

Thank you twilight gecko. I still can't get used to loosing the girls. But you've brought up a great point. I didn't not notice any peck marks on her. We do have a TON of red tail hawks around, but I would assume a hawk would have tried to eat her. We also saw a fox in the neighbors yard the other day, but I assume the fox would have taken her with him.

 

[twilightgecko]

have you pulled back her feathers? looked for wounds? i've had some girls that i didn't even know had a wounds till i checked under all their feathers.. bird of prey, head/neck/shoulders..

 

[twilightgecko]

it's always heart breaking to lose a girl.. mine are pets and i've lost some to trial and error.. i try to set up a game cam when i'm not home.. but not long ago, my girls were spooked to even dash from the run to the coop.. i watched them.. they kept looking UP and then to one spot.. i found a dead crow.. soo, they saw something bad happen near to them..

 

[crazychickenlady81]

I'd guess domestic dog...anything else would have carried her off or eaten her on the spot.

Thats what I was reading in other posts. But I have a really hard time believing another dog could have made it in and out of the chicken yard undetected. We have two dogs, but they are separated from the chickens by an electric fence. Then, there is about 20 feet before the chicken fence starts which keeps the girls in. The fencing is 2 x 4 inch wire fencing, and about 4 feet high. So I have a hard time believing that a dog could have gotten in and out without being detected. We don't live in a highly populated area, and Ive never seen a dog (other than our own) in our yard. Anything is possible, but it seems unlikely for the culprit to be a dog.

 

[crazychickenlady81]

have you pulled back her feathers? looked for wounds? i've had some girls that i didn't even know had a wounds till i checked under all their feathers.. bird of prey, head/neck/shoulders..

I did not pull back many of her feathers. She was super stiff, so it was hard to move her at all. She also had a lot of missing feathers from her molt, so she wasn't as fluffy as she normally is and a little easier to see parts of her body. Maybe I should go do another look.

 

[crazychickenlady81]

I also should mention, I noticed that once the "molt" started, her eye color got very red. I'm newer to chickens, and have not had another chicken molt as dramatically as she did, so I don't know if this is apart of it or not. Has anyone experienced this in their chickens before? Another friend mentioned that he thought maybe she was actually sick, and that could have been the cause of either her death, or why she could have been picked off by the rest of the flock.

 

[twilightgecko]

i can say that mine are still molting, and there is snow on the ground.. they dropped so many feathers so quickly, they looked sick.. then they stopped molting for a wee bit, and yesterday the coop was full of feathers again.. another part of their body molts.. never noticed red eyes, just they seem thinner, their combs aren't red, no eggs..

 

[crazychickenlady81]

also, if the other birds were acting skiddish, as you stated.. SOMETHING scared them.. something had to have gotten to your girl.. my girls get very scared after close calls.. they stay skiddish for a while AND they also let me know WHERE they are scared of.. watch the others.. are they looking UP? air predator.. looking towards a certain spot? investigate the spot..
again
sorry

Its funny that you mention this, because they seemed to be scared to go into their run and coop, which is normally a safe place for them. Even when I came back with meal worms to get them in the coop after I found Ruth, they tried to avoid it at all costs and took 2 of us about 30 minutes to herd them in. I wonder if something got her while she was inside since I keep the doors open during the day while they are out.

 

[crazychickenlady81]

I would not seperate, as it seems that this was not caused by fighting. The hen that passed sounds like it was at the top of the pecking order so it would be pecking other hens and not vice versa.

I would agree with you Barnhart. With my first flock (before the newbies came in) she was at the bottom of the pecking order. But after we lost a few of the hens from the first flock and added the new girls, she was at the top of the pecking order, and probably the most aggressive, but only with the new girls. She was never an aggressive hen before though!

 

[crazychickenlady81]

i can say that mine are still molting, and there is snow on the ground.. they dropped so many feathers so quickly, they looked sick.. then they stopped molting for a wee bit, and yesterday the coop was full of feathers again.. another part of their body molts.. never noticed red eyes, just they seem thinner, their combs aren't red, no eggs..

Okay that makes me feel better. I pray my other two hens don't start molting now!! She was thinner, and stopped laying eggs.