Hen found passed away

[Jwestonchick]

Warning for the squeamish!

I’ve had this hen for 2 years now. She started molting and lost almost all of her feathers which I thought was normal. I’ve never had a hen molt before so I wasn’t too concerned about how awful her skin looked. She was found this morning dead in a nesting box where she’s been sleeping at night but has been out free ranging with the flock all week. It has been chillier out recently here in Western PA but I don’t want it to be a disease that the rest of the flock could catch. Has anyone seen this before? The rest of my flock looks fine and they’re laying like normal. I did add new chicks to her flock and there’s a rooster this time that she hadn’t been used to before, maybe too much stress while molting? I moved her flock from VA to PA over the summer and everything was fine until about 2-3 months ago? It’s now November. Any help is appreciated and I’ll answer any questions you may have as well! Thank you!

 

[azygous]

This is interesting, but I'm going to ask you to take some more photos and pay attention to closeups of the skin. In order to assure as much detail is revealed as possible, place the hen on a dark towel and focus a light on her. That way the camera will focus on the hen and not the background.

Then, when you download your photos to this thread, select "full size" instead of "thumbnail".

What I see in these photos are abnormal feathers that might point to an avian virus. And that definitely would have serious implications for the rest of your flock.