We have been really lucky not to have any death's from predator attacks, we have coyotes, hawks, racoons, opossum, wild dogs and whatever else hangs around in the woods. Our dogs have not killed any of our poultry, although they have pulled some tail feathers out a couple of times.
Our first death was my favorite hen Ms Poofy Face. We went outside to let them out for free ranging and found her dead in the chicken run, she was still warm...we inspected her and found no wounds. I read up on sudden deaths in chickens and since she had no illness prior to her death, we think she may have had a heart attack.
Our second death was one of our Rouen ducks, he had some health issues, Angel Wing and a vitamin deficiency we believe. I noticed him standing in water...and not moving, in the beginning I just thought he was keeping cool. Later in the day the other ducks were pecking him and I went and got him out of the water. I read up on ducks more trying to figure out what was wrong, he stopped walking too. I brought him in the house and started giving him vitamins and Salmon cat food, he was getting better and standing up and flapping his wings and scooting around the floor making a mess. I started taking him outside and let him swim, I kept him in a cage on the back porch for a little while until my husband thought he would get more exercise if we took him to the pond. I was worried about him getting eaten by a predator or the dogs. He did well out at the pond, I would go down and call for him and he would swim to me. He was far from well, but he could get on the bank and into the water and swam pretty well. On his second week at the pond, I called and he didn't come see me like usual. I told the dogs to find him...Kensie, our lab found him. He was not moving. I could not get to where he was, but he still looked like he was in one piece. I am still not sure what happened to him, I just know he died.
Our third death was a chick. I let my hens hatch some eggs when they were broody. I had two broody hens at that time. One had three hatch and got off the eggs after three days, so I stuck the rest of the eggs under the other hen. She had five eggs hatch and then pooped on the rest of the eggs and switched to a different nest box. I took the remainder of the eggs out of the box and cleaned up the nest boxes. I left the eggs out overnight on top of the coop...it got down in the fifties that night. When I realized that I left them out I was going to toss the eggs into the compost bin but decided to do an eggtopsy. I gently cracked the eggs open...all but one were not fertile. The fertile one had a live chick in it! I made the mistake of putting the egg in the nest box with a hen, I thought it would have a better chance at finishing hatching. She promptly pecked it to death. I will not make that mistake again. I have since gotten an incubator.
We had two other chick deaths, the chicks were not healthy when they hatched in the incubator. I delt with pasty butt and bullying from the other chicks. They seem to peck on any that are not strong, natural selection I suppose. Some chicks are just small and weak sometimes...and do not thrive like the others, especially chicks from hatching eggs sent through the mail. These were both from hatching eggs that I incubated. Both times, they had pasty butt, I tried everything I could but found them dead in the morning at around 5 days old.
Our latest death was heat related. Our Rhode Island Red rooster. I separated the roosters into separate pens inside of a fenced area. Each of them had their own food and water. I put up shade cloth in the fenced area for shade and their kennels both have roofs or tarps over the top. My husband usually lets all of the chickens out in the mornings, we make sure the feeders and waterers are full when we put them up at night so all he does is let them out and do a quick check on them. I usually go out and check on them later in the morning...usually. I got busy and didn't check on the chickens until late in the afternoon...I found big Red face down in the dirt. He had spilled his water and was laying on a wet spot his face was covered in dirt. I bathed him in cool water and gave him droppers full of electrolytes and vitamins. I filled up his waterer with more electrolytes and vitamins and laid him on a towel in his kennel. I put a nipple waterer in his cage too...something he could not spill. I hoped he would be OK in the morning, he was standing up when I left him. The next morning, I went to check on him and he had died during then night. That is one bad thing about having so many animals...you cannot save them all when something goes wrong. We are building new waterers out of PVC pipes and hooking them up to 55 gallon or larger rain barrels or water containers now, something that they can't spill. We are learning the hard way at times how fragile life is.
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