To the chicken whisperers....

Sp00ks

Sp00ks

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We have/had 8 chickens. A month or two back, I found one dead inside the coupe. No obvious reason for the death.

Tonight I was down at the coupe, collected eggs, gave them some scratch grain, everyone seemed happy. I didn't even make it back to the house and heard a commotion. I went back down and had a dead chicken in the run. No signs of trauma, disease, etc.

Both chickens were "Rainbow" breed from tractor supply. Both were about 2.5-3 years old. Big girls.

I suspect they were egg bound if that is a thing. When I picked her up, the chickens gathered and I saw a yoke on the ground but don't recall seeing an egg shell.

Any ideas? We have lost two, the same breed with no obvious signs of any issues.
 
So you all are saying it's calium problem?
 
Had various chickens for years , usually start with. 10-12 . One or two always seem to die out of every batch. Our most recent batch , I went to feed in the am and she was laying outside the coop like she was sitting on an egg - dead. Of course this was my wife’s favorite.
 
InvisibleOne said:
It's one of the possibilities. If the hen has an egg break inside of her while she's trying to pass it, it's pretty much fatal.
Click to expand...

This I didn't know.

I have one bird that lays brittle eggs. The other five lay normal eggs.

I may have to add oyster shell to help out.

As far as just up and dying, the only experience I had with that was with Lavendar Orpingtons. I had three out of five die within the first two years of life, with no outside indicators. One of those was a rooster.
 
We learned the hard way. One hen started looking sick, wouldn't eat. Died a few days later. We didn't know why.
About a month later, we found yolk in the nesting box and another hen died shortly after.
We did some research, suspected thin eggs, then found that we had mistakenly bought feed without extra calcium.
We went back to the enriched feed and shells thickened immediately.

Adding ground egg shells back to their feed helps, so does a dish of oyster shells. But, our girls don't eat enough on their own, so we buy the feed with added calcium.
There are other illnesses, too. But, when you mentioned yolk without visible shell, it sounded like a broken shell.
 
Well thru the years of having chickens I've learned one thing. Like she said with chickens it seems they say it's ( place a day here) guess I'll die today and it seems to be true they will die for no reason
 
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Had 4 out of 10 just die off the roost. All found in the coop.

Bout to get rid of the rest as they stopped producing. They are going on 3 years old.
 
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