What is killing my chickens?

[McChooky]

But... This is SO much grass, etc. This is winter and they mowed down the "saw grass," it's just so much grass...I did my temporary fencing to keep them out of my garden but they have acres and acres of grass and woods and no problems........

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The grass is usually no problem as long as they eat the tender tips but yanking tall grass out of the ground and feeding the chickens isn't a good idea.I cut mine up with scissors when I pick them grass. Your place is absolutely heavenly! I know your chickens are very happy!

 

[Loving my girls]

Or have your neighbours been using poison to kill rats Or mice ?
The nasties could have crawled onto your land to die.
I don’t know about your hens but mine are Definitely not vegetarian if you get my drift
Hugz

 

[sandburRanch]

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.

For confined chickens not able to eat grass , good green leafy alfalfa hay is a excellent substitution .

It's also a good feed for all classes of livestock .

 

[Scooter1A]

I've never had a free range chicken die from poisonous plants. I had 2 die from pecking at the ground where Antifreeze had dripped. We didn't realize that one of our tractors had a small radiator leak.

My neighbor's dog killed 3 of my best layers in my front yard yesterday.

 

[TaylorGlade]

Do you have any baits, etc down?

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Awe, I feel so bad for you to get discouraged about them enjoying your property. It's really not that common and I bet you will find the source of the problem as you continue to investigate. It's easy to make temporary, daytime fencing to limit where they range (easier than a tractor.) I have 5 acres too, and I have a few chicken wire rolls with stakes that I stapled on + some "panels" that I built with fencing wire and horizonal fence boards. I basically divide my property in half to let them range where I want them based on season. But also to keep them from wandering to far where we dont have fencing (the River side. I don't know what they could encounter beyond our property and I've heard that neighbors have poison out.... Don't beat yourself up, you're just trying to do the right thing, they SO enjoy free-ranging.

 

[BankFam]

Thank you very much everyone! It has been very helpful discussing this with you. This is what I'm thinking:

Although it is possible they were eating infected rodents, I think the most likely scenario is that we were causing impacted crop by letting the kids feed them grass through the fence. It breaks my heart to think we were directly causing the problem, but it helps a lot to know that it is easily controllable. It didn't occur to me before that it would be an issue because a friend of ours with chickens was encouraging the kids to feed theirs grass all day long. My poor chickies.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Thank you very much everyone! It has been very helpful discussing this with you. This is what I'm thinking:

Although it is possible they were eating infected rodents, I think the most likely scenario is that we were causing impacted crop by letting the kids feed them grass through the fence. It breaks my heart to think we were directly causing the problem, but it helps a lot to know that it is easily controllable. It didn't occur to me before that it would be an issue because a friend of ours with chickens was encouraging the kids to feed theirs grass all day long. My poor chickies.

Maybe find something your kids can feed them? So their not left out. A treat of sort that you can monitor. I use to try giving ours dandelions I found in the yard. Same with my nieces and nephew. Once we started letting them out they could care less about them lol

 

[McChooky]

Thank you very much everyone! It has been very helpful discussing this with you. This is what I'm thinking:

Although it is possible they were eating infected rodents, I think the most likely scenario is that we were causing impacted crop by letting the kids feed them grass through the fence. It breaks my heart to think we were directly causing the problem, but it helps a lot to know that it is easily controllable. It didn't occur to me before that it would be an issue because a friend of ours with chickens was encouraging the kids to feed theirs grass all day long. My poor chickies.

Unfortunately I didn't know either and did it to mine when I first got them and had at least one starve to death with the same symptoms

 

[McChooky]

I never heard this before. Do you have a link to a research to confirm this? Are you talking about laying hybrids?

I never had crop issues with my flock (6-9 bantam chickens for 10 years). They free range sometimes but are confined to a net covered run most of the time. I just don’t feed them long grass in the run and they have always access to grit in the run and small stones in my yard.

Chickens will not only eat tall grass if not given a choice they'll also eat toxic plants if there's little else to eat. I learned this when I researched free ranging chickens in chicken tractors(confined to a small space)