[Kitchen Cottage]

I gave my tenants two chickens., one an ex battery and one was a bantam that I got last week (13 weeks old).

Because I've had horrendous mites, I cleaned a hutch and repainted it before I gave it.

The chickens were absolutely fine last night, and this morning one was dead and the other dying... I was fond of the ex battery, I called her scanky because she came oven ready.

I am ridiculously upset over the death.. and worried about what caused it.  All my hens are fine.  Its only these two that died.  They were in a separate garden but roamed with mine during the day.

What could have killed them.  Neither was egg bound and both were fine last night.

Help?  Could there be mites and could they kill 2 hens overnight? I couldn't see any today

[HesterF]

There could be mites - a clean and a paint won't kill them. Insecticides, creosote or diatom (longer term solution) will do that. However, I can't think that they'd kill a chicken overnight. I recently discovered my one uncreosoted chicken house was crawling with them but the five young chickens in there seemed fine.

What symptoms did they have (apart from death!)? Could your tenants have given them something poisonous to eat by mistake? Have a chat to the tenants to see what happened yesterday and see if you can find any clues as to what might have been out of the ordinary. I can't think of many diseases that would kill that quickly - even with coccidiosis and similar you have a miserable looking chicken for a couple of days. So it doesn't sound like disease to me.

The only other thing I can think is whether they were so scared by a predator, they got literally scared to death. I have absolutely no idea whether this is possible but I'm racking my brain!

So sorry, it's horrible when it's that sudden,

H

[happygolucky]

I wonder if some animal (rat, snake, etc) had got them and bitten them...not sure where you are, I do know chickens often just drop dead without too much warning, they also may have eaten something.......don't beat yourself up over it...its often hard to know whats happened unless you have hidden cameras!

[happygolucky]

Must have posted the same time.....  

[Bodger]

What have your tenants been feeding the chickens? Mites don't cause sudden death like that and I'd be looking at the possibility that they may have been poisoned.

[Mammyshaz]

If you only had the bantam for a week could it have been carrying disease?    so sorry.

[THE HAPPY POULTRY FARMER]

What paint did you repaint house with ? could it have been toxic to chooks .

[Kitchen Cottage]

animal safe paint...and my other chooks have been in there before. I've checked for mites and its clear    Totally confused at the sudden deaths.  Dean swears he only fed them the chook food I feed mine with. There were no symptoms other than death, they were healthy and perky yesterday.

[chrismahon]

I think mites that are newly hatched or that haven't fed for a while in sufficiently large numbers could kill two chickens overnight KC. However the obvious sign would be very pale combs from blood loss.


Poisoning would be my assumption. The material in the crop is digested overnight, so they could eat rat poison or something during the day with no immediate effect. Then die overnight from the effects.