Re: I Found One Of My Hens Dead This Afternoon..
Originally Posted by
Mups
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That a shame Art.
Nice birds are Welsummers, nice brown eggs.
Did you examine the body? Did you feel the crop to see if it was full of liquid or hard and solid?
Did you feel her breasbone and see if she was thin? Or look at the vent to see if there was any 'runs' or blood, or an egg stuck?
There are quite a few things it could have been, including just age or eaten alive by Red Mite even.
Are you sure of their age when you bought them?
I would check the others in the morning if I were you.
Mups, l couldn’t examine her properly. l was too upset.
There was no blood. She’d laid an egg this morning as she always does every day, never misses.
I had noticed a few red mites lately on the perch but l had treated all the hens and cleaned out the coops and treated the perches.
What l did notice about her dead body, one leg was straight down but the other was bent and tucked underneath her as if she only had one leg..
I bought her from a reputable poultry breeder who lives near me. He is thought highly of in the ‘poultry world’. I have had hens from him before and one of them an Ancaura lived until she was well over 9 years old.
Maybe, because the two young ones were Hi-Lines/Hybrid and are only bred to produce lots of eggs, they burn themselves out?