Dead Chicken :-(

[lemonstartree]

So I went out this morning to let the girls out and found Lola, our silkie, dead on the nesting box floor. She was fine yesterday.... the other girls seem fine, we have only had them 4 weeks, but they have been wormed and have seemed very healthy. we even have eggs, - any ideas wbout what could cause this sudden death?

Could be anything really. Birds are very adept at hiding any illness until it's too late.

Infection, parasites, problems with their insides.

What are you worming with?

have wormed them with Flubenvet, and adding cider vinegar to their drinking water....

Oh no

Flubenvet is okay, but doesn't get rid of all parasites. I periodically use an Ivermectin spray, which knocks out both internal and external parasites. You can use it just twice a year, with Flubenvet inbetween for general worming. The spray isn't cheap, but it lasts for ages and kills anything and everything including gape worm and scaly leg mite.

I lost a couple of birds when I first started keeping chickens and it was due to parasites - worms and lice. After that I really stepped up the parasite control and I haven't lost one since (touch wood).

Deformed and soft shelled eggs are often a sign of worms. I know when one of my light sussex has a worm load because her eggs become deformed, then totally soft. You have to try and get to know your individual birds so that you can spot when something is wrong. If you have quite a few that can be difficult to achieve. I only have three, so it's not too bad.

Mycoplasma is a really common infection. It's a sort of cold and is easily cleared up with antibiotics - I found oxytetracycline very effective and it's as cheap as chips.

Other than that all you can do to maintain health and hopefully avoid death is to keep them as clean as possible and feed a good variety of diet and clean water. Don't feed organic layers pellets as they don't contain anti coccidial treatments.

Other types of disease or infection aren't always easy to spot or treat, but the main ones are usually easily dealt with.

Oh no

Have you checked for red mite?

Ivermectin will also stop the mites from biting the chicken, but won't kill them in the actual coop. You'll have to disinfect and perhaps steam clean it.

Your chicken probably died from something random and unavoidable.

One of my light sussex came from the breeder with mycoplasma. I had a hell of a job getting rid of it because the first antibiotics the vet gave me weren't that good - expensive, but ineffective.

Its really sad when this happens but sometimes you don't get to the bottom of it and just have to keep doing your best for them. we were foxed last night and lost 10 including some of our fancy breeds so i know how it feels!