Young Silkie Randomly Died?

[hmlent]

This morning I let the chickens out and five of the six came out as usual. The Silkies usually take longer to come down but I checked the coop anyway and one happened to be lying at the back, limp. She was breathing and twitching a bit, and opened her eyes when I talked to her. She even tried to stand once but couldn’t. I took her out in a blanket and didn’t see any obvious injuries. After a bit, she started to flap her wings like crazy and then just twisted around and died right there. Didn’t make much noise at all.

The rest of them seem totally normal...and so was this Silkie the night before. I have absolutely no idea what happened. There was a thunderstorm last night and it was a little colder than usual, it they’ve been out in the coop for weeks and have feathers. I live in the middle of the city and don’t think anything could have gotten to her. I’m just stumped. Does anyone have any ideas? She was kind of always slower and at the bottom of the pecking order...but didn’t seem unhealthy in any way. She was only probably three months old.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Sorry for your loss.

Where did they come from? Do you know if it was vaccinated for Marek's? Any chance she got into anything rotten or poisonous? What do you feed including treats and supplements?

Best way I think you can tell the most is by necropsy.. free or cheap in many states as a means of protecting our food supply chain. Links to help, should you decide to do that...

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-to-send-a-bird-for-a-necropsy-pictures.799747/

 

[hmlent]

We got her from a reputable farm, they test for all sorts of things. I know she wasn’t show quality like most of their birds are, but she seemed healthy. We’ve been feeding chick feed, with grit on the side because we do free range and feed them table scraps here and there. I threw some pork roast in there a few days ago but they all ate it and I didn’t notice anything weird. Other than that, nothing else that I know about.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Check this link... it gives most possible causes for the symptom you put in to at least give you clues to narrow it down. You might call this one sudden death....
http://www.poultrydvm.com/views/symptoms.php

Reputable farm or not, things happen... they might not even know (yet). My suggestion would still be necropsy if you wanna know what happened... And I would. Show quality or not, I agree there is no reason for it not to be considered a healthy chick. Also, it could have picked something up at your place (like Marek's) that it wasn't exposed to at the farm if it was incubator hatched and in the brooder before you got it. Though Marek's isn't listed as a cause for sudden death. Even if you already have birds... maybe they just weren't susceptible to whatever happened here, we all have different immune systems. Birds (chickens) are very good at hiding things, since as prey animals any weakness shown makes them the first to go.

Listed are possible E deficit, or excess salt (which is an electrolyte). So many things can happen and so fast in chickens. Many of them look the same as another making it difficult to discern sometimes.

For me personally.. even if was an accident like a broken neck or something... I might not be able to tell that apart from standard limpness of a deceased chicken. So there are a LOT of things I could easily miss if I was trying to diagnose myself, and usually ask for help. I haven't done so yet... but there are threads on here with experienced folk willing to help you through performing your own necropsy and look at things for you, using pictures. I recently had a rooster suddenly die, from a suspected choking accident... we heard the honking when he was gasping for air (not a sign of blocked good enough to cause death) and a few moments later he was dead under the hanging feeder. We processed him for the freezer since he was perfectly fine dancing at other boys in the stag pen just that morning. Oddly, when we saw his liver... one side was huge like the size of my hand and the other was normal. It was still pretty and red with no fat deposits on it. And the same shape and flatness just much larger. Not quite the same as fatty liver syndrome (which your girl seems to young for also). So I may never know what truly caused it I guess. But I wasn't worried about it being contagious. He was such a good boy, hated to see him go.