The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: ewesaidit on April 19, 2015, 09:23:04 pm
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Hi Bit shocked to find my bluebelle lying dead this evening ??? No signs of anything wrong, behaving normally last time I looked at them about an hour before I found her still warm but definitely dead. She was in good condition. She was one of three. The other two - a light sussex and a rhode rock are both fine apart from the light sussex having a bare bottom!
Any suggestions as to why?
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If no obvious signs of ill health, infestations etc, I'd think it was her heart. best way to go for her but sad for you to lose her so suddenly :'(
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Hybrid hens can do this in my experience. They sometimes just drop. I guess it's part of the hybrid vigour which makes them lay better, also has negative effects sometimes. Not a bad way to go though. I bought a load of hybrid Light Sussex which were 2013 hatch and have 2 left out of 8. Bought Cream Legbars at the same time and still have all of them. Only doing pure breeds from now on. Pure Rhodes or Australorps etc. can lay just as well in my opinion and they seem to be much hardier.
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I've heard lots of hybrids and breeds which are reputed to be good layers now coming in from Poland. Did you buy your chicks from someone you know?
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I've heard lots of hybrids and breeds which are reputed to be good layers now coming in from Poland. Did you buy your chicks from someone you know?
They are. My neighbour supplies most of the POL dealers around here and he sources day olds from East Europe. Does 1000's at a time. Problem is that they select for sexing and nothing else. They have a strain of Light Sussex that can be sexed at hatch. That's all they worry about so longevity, foraging skills, appetite, bone structure, shell quality and egg shape all go out of the window. I found out that the Light Sussex I bought off a local dealer ultimately came from him and they are hopeless to be honest. Those that haven't died in the first 2 years are now laying thin shelled eggs or trying to eat any other egg they find. Depressing.
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A good road crossed with a bared rock or cuckoo crossed with black or blue marran will lay for 5 seasons .I have a cream Legbar that will be 4 seasons old in may
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I had two bluebells that died, well I culled one, at about the same age. Pretty birds but they weren't even as good a layer as some of the other hybrids I had.
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Can't beat Hylines
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Thanks for the replies everyone. It was just so unexpected. I suppose that's the best way to look at it - one minute there, next minute not.
Will put up a separate post re the light sussex with the bare bottom!
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I had a duck which escaped a fox attack and about a month or two later died of an heart attack. Because bird flu was on the news, and her death was sudden, we called out specialists who dealt with birds which had bird flu, the result was she'd had an heart attack no bird flu whatsoever.