Woke up this morning and starting making my rounds feeding everyone. Started with the chicks/ducklings in the brooder (God knows my Cornish X's could not wait one more minute to eat, they think I starve them), moved on to the pigs and the goat, and finally to my chickens. When I started throwing their scratch in I noticed on of my bantam mixes, Rogue was leg up in the coop. I rushed inside but was a few hours late it seems she was already gone. Some of her feathers were strewn around the coop but other than that she looked perfectly fine. No wounds to speak of. Her crop didn't seem abnormally large and I know she laid an egg yesterday, so she didn't have and impacted crop and was not egg bound.
This whole tragedy is just a mystery to me. Could she have been picked on to death? My Australorp hens take the pecking order pretty seriously and the way it goes in our coop is R.J. my roo, the 3 Australorps, the 3 Banty mixes, and my silkies last. I know the bigger hens push around the little ones from time to time but I didn't hear anything. All my chickens (besides the Silkies) free range during the day and our locked in their coop at night. I guess I will never know.
That is Rogue to the right.
This whole tragedy is just a mystery to me. Could she have been picked on to death? My Australorp hens take the pecking order pretty seriously and the way it goes in our coop is R.J. my roo, the 3 Australorps, the 3 Banty mixes, and my silkies last. I know the bigger hens push around the little ones from time to time but I didn't hear anything. All my chickens (besides the Silkies) free range during the day and our locked in their coop at night. I guess I will never know.
That is Rogue to the right.