What is killing my chickens?

[BankFam]

The only answers I can find online are for predators and things people feed their chickens, but my question is specifically related to FREE- RANGING chickens and what they will naturally graze on.

Our chickens were all very healthy and thriving. I started free-ranging them daily. After some time, one of them became very lethargic, eventually stopped eating, developed some slight puffiness in her face, and died.

So far, we have lost a total of 5 hens to unidentified sickness. The first was the only one who had puffiness, but they all became suddenly lethargic, stopped eating, had watery poops, and died, some more suddenly than others. I did my best to diagnose and care for them but I am still new at this. I'm not sure if I am accurately checking the crop for emptying. There were no other symptoms. No discharge or anything. Just lethargy and watery poops.

I finally stopped free-ranging them. We lost one more very shortly after, so I also took the precaution of telling my kids to stop feeding them grass (in case it was clogging the crop). It has been several months since we stopped free-ranging and we have not had any losses since then. They are all very happy now, although they really miss being on grass.

My best guess now is that they were eating something poisonous while free-ranging. What kinds of things would a chicken eat in the wild that would kill them? My husband suspects hemlock.

We live in WV.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Hello, go to PoultryDVM and select all the symptoms that apply, then you will probably find the possible cause. I hope your chickens never get this again!

 

[ChasingChooks]

Woah - that website is cool! Thanks for sharing! I hope I never have to use it, but it sure looks handy.

And, I don't know what the problem could be. Sorry that I can't help you.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

I'm a thousand miles south of you, but to this day I've not seen a chicken injured or killed by poison, and my chickens eat a wide range of poisonous plants (pokeweed, dogfennel, yellow jessamine) and even a variety of mushrooms. If there's anything deadly poisonous here they're definitely not eating it despite having full access

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Woah - that website is cool! Thanks for sharing! I hope I never have to use it, but it sure looks handy.

And, I don't know what the problem could be. Sorry that I can't help you.

Your welcome!

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Where did they free-range? Any chance they got into rat poison? I agree that chickens don't typically eat a "natural" poisonous vegetation.

 

[TaylorGlade]

Do you have any baits, etc down?

 

[Smokerbill]

Could they have found some trash? Maybe they were eating glass or screws. I opened the crop up of one of my chickens that died unexpectedly and its gizzard was filled with pieces of broken safety glass. I found that it was laying internally, too, so I'm not 100% sure why it died.

 

[BankFam]

Where did they free-range? Any chance they got into rat poison? I agree that chickens don't typically eat a "natural" poisonous vegetation.

It's a possibility but I don't know how they would have gotten exposed to it. We had some locked in the shed and we only ever used it IN the shed because that's where the rodent problem is and I'm pretty sure the mice ate all of it before we started free-ranging. We no longer use it and we don't use chemicals anywhere else on the property.

What if they were grazing on the leech field?

 

[BankFam]

Could they have found some trash? Maybe they were eating glass or screws. I opened the crop up of one of my chickens that died unexpectedly and its gizzard was filled with pieces of broken safety glass. I found that it was laying internally, too, so I'm not 100% sure why it died.

That's possible. We have 5 acres and I haven't combed through the whole thing to make sure it's cleared of trash since we moved in. We've seen some beer cans and such.