I am a first time chicken owner. I have 3 Buff Orpingtons, 3 black sexlinks, and 3 Light Brahmas. They were hatched may 1st and I have raised them since. They all are hens and have been laying for about 6 weeks now. This morning when I went to collect eggs, one of the Buff Orppingtons was dead. It appeared that it had happened not long before I got there. Her body was still warm. She had no injuries on her body. I was wondering if she had a heart attack or something similar. Can she have gotten startled and fly into a wall? Can someone maybe give me a clue?
Chickens do have heart attacks. Generally when this happens their combs and wattles will be darkened in coloration. Also a broken neck due to fright and flight injury is possible. At one time I raised ring neck pheasants and lost birds to 'fright crashes'.
Birds can die suddenly from many things, including heart attacks, being egg bound, injuring themselves on something, or having some internal problem. Without a necropsy, you will often never knew for sure what went wrong; however, even with a necropsy, the cause of death is often vague. As long as no more of your chickens start dying, this is probably just a freak occurrence. Whatever happened, I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you for the replies, it helps alot. I am amazed how attached I have gotten to them. I will let you know how the rest do. Thank you for the replies!.
Aww! How sad It seems whenever we lose one of our birds/animals/pets, I'm the one to discover it. Hope your other girls are OK....
