year-old polish hen found dead, no injuries :(

[ChickenMom04]

This morning we found one of our favorite hens, a buff polish, dead with no apparent cause. She had been acting fine in the days before, although last night she seemed a little tired. she was fluffed up in the nesting box, so I just assumed she was laying an egg. usually all my chickens act lazy when they're laying eggs, so i didn't suspect anything when she didn't get up and run away. she's also very friendly so its normal for her to be quiet. I just want to know why this happened. one of my ducks also died this way. she acted fine one day, got slower into the night, and then died. there are never any signs of struggle, and they seem to just fall asleep and pass away. what's wrong? When this happened to my duck, we made sure to disinfect their duck house to make sure it wasnt an infection, but now that it happened again, I'm doubting that infection was the cause. could she have been egg bound? how can we tell if she's already dead? Help please!

 

[CHlCKEN]

How old was she? Pictures? Feel around to see if you can feel an egg. Did she have the symptoms of an egg bound hen?

 

[ChickenMom04]

How old was she? Pictures? Feel around to see if you can feel an egg. Did she have the symptoms of an egg bound hen?

only a year, and I know chickens should live a lot longer than that. I can't get pictures right now but I will eventually. We will be going out soon to feel for an egg. it got pretty cold here, dropping into the negatives, but our coop is well insulated and on the cold days we have kept the door closed and had a heatlamp running. what are the symptoms? like I said, she acted normal until last night when she was only slightly lethargic. she seemed like she was just laying an egg, nothing was unusual

 

[CHlCKEN]

only a year, and I know chickens should live a lot longer than that. I can't get pictures right now but I will eventually. We will be going out soon to feel for an egg. it got pretty cold here, dropping into the negatives, but our coop is well insulated and on the cold days we have kept the door closed and had a heatlamp running. what are the symptoms? like I said, she acted normal until last night when she was only slightly lethargic. she seemed like she was just laying an egg, nothing was unusual

Symptoms of an egg bound hen include: Stying behind the rest of the flock, staying in the nest box/sleeping in it, not eating/drinking, standing like a penguin, lethargy, etc

 

[ChickenMom04]

Symptoms of an egg bound hen include: Stying behind the rest of the flock, staying in the nest box/sleeping in it, not eating/drinking, standing like a penguin, lethargy, etc

she was more shy and holding back, but can hens just die overnight from being egg bound like that? one of my close friends has had hens who were egg bound but their symptoms were more obvious and easy to fix.

 

[CHlCKEN]

she was more shy and holding back, but can hens just die overnight from being egg bound like that? one of my close friends has had hens who were egg bound but their symptoms were more obvious and easy to fix.

An egg bound hen can die within 48 hours or less. Chickens are really quite good at hiding their symptoms until the last minute. It could literally have been anything though since “shy and holding back” is a symptom for everything. However, it does indicate there was something wrong.