Whole flock gone

[ChickyMudder]

Hello. I am looking to see of anyone might have a clue to our mystery. Yesterday evening we went out to the coop to collect eggs and all 12 hens and our 1 rooster were dead in the coop. None of them in the run. They were all on one side of the coop and it was the strangest thing. No indication of a predator. They're all different ages, the oldest being 3 years and the youngest not even a year.

They had stopped laying for several months, so we added in black sunflower oil seeds, all stock sweet feed, and catfish food pellets. Within 2 days they started laying again. This was a little over a week ago. My thought initially is if it were poison, then wouldn't they be scattered through out the run and the coop?..and they all died the same afternoon... any thoughts?

Have you considered taking them in for a tox screen at the vet? Sounds suspect. Any neighbors hate chickens?

 

[Goosebaby]

@Kwdfunnyfarm I’m sorry for your loss but for the community’s sake could you post an update?

Also how long have you had your birds?
How old were they when they died?
Where did you get your birds originally?

I know you’re new here and that this post is from January with few updates in a long while but the loss of 13 birds in such a manner is highly unusual and of a lot of interest to other flock owners because learning from incidences like yours can improve how others care for their flocks or anticipate problems before they appear, so an update would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ekipp]

We are in north Texas. The setup is a small leland shed and the run is a chain link dog run covered with chicken wire and the top is a chicken wire roof. They weren't piled up but they definitely were not scattered. To be honest it looks as if someone went in there lined them up and executed them... does that make sense? We checked the perimeter for any holes, or possible ways a predator would have gotten in and didn't find anything. No teeth marks, no blood, and none of them had missing feathers that we could see. We aren't ruling anything out. I was just wondering if anyone had heard of such a thing happening and if it could have been any of the new stuff we added to their feed. It was shocking because they hadn't laid since before the heat of the summer, but 2 days after adding the above to their feed they were back laying again.

I was SO sad to read about this. what a tragedy and horrible to find. I know this is not helping what has already happened, but we have a nest camera installed in our inner run. It's fun to watch them but it's super helpful to ensure everyone made it in before the automatic doors close and in times of trouble, can help identify the intruder. Just a thought. and again, sorry for your loss.

 

[nuthatched]

This thread is almost 2 months old, folks....

 

[WildHair]

This thread is almost 2 months old, folks....

does it matter? I think if someone wants to comment on a thread they should be able to whether the thread is 2 months old or 2 years old. if someone has something to add they should be able to add it.

 

[Kwdfunnyfarm]

I was SO sad to read about this. what a tragedy and horrible to find. I know this is not helping what has already happened, but we have a nest camera installed in our inner run. It's fun to watch them but it's super helpful to ensure everyone made it in before the automatic doors close and in times of trouble, can help identify the intruder. Just a thought. and again, sorry for your loss.

Thank you! Unfortunately we do not have electricity at that part of our property.

 

[Kwdfunnyfarm]

@Kwdfunnyfarm I’m sorry for your loss but for the community’s sake could you post an update?

Also how long have you had your birds?
How old were they when they died?
Where did you get your birds originally?

I know you’re new here and that this post is from January with few updates in a long while but the loss of 13 birds in such a manner is highly unusual and of a lot of interest to other flock owners because learning from incidences like yours can improve how others care for their flocks or anticipate problems before they appear, so an update would be greatly appreciated.

Theres nothing to update really... the birds all died and we did not do any testing. We've had chickens for 3 years. The ages ranged from 3 years to almost a year old. The older girls were from meyers hatchery and tsc, some of the younger ones were chicks we hatched and tractor supply. My husband believes it was too much protein from the things we added to try to get them laying again. (Black sunflower seeds, sweet feed, and catfish food)

 

[BecksNesting]

Have you considered taking them in for a tox screen at the vet? Sounds suspect. Any neighbors hate chickens?

My first thought is possibly an ammonia build up. I "think" we are supposed to have one square foot of ventilation per bird in the coop. Also, my pretrial of using sand allowed for ammonia to build up in an open air area in our garage while our chicks were growing up. So we changed to AubiChick Hemp. With ventilation and regular fluffing, we are ammonia free. As temperatures begin to rise as the seasons changes from winter to spring it may have increased the ammonia.

I'm very sorry for this loss.

 

[NatJ]

My husband believes it was too much protein from the things we added to try to get them laying again. (Black sunflower seeds, sweet feed, and catfish food)

If you or he are tired of the topic, that's fine. Ignore the rest of this post.

But for anyone still interested:

He might be right that it was something about the new foods, but it probably wasn't excess protein.

20% protein is fine for chickens of both genders and all ages (it's common in chick starter and all-flock feeds). 16% is more common in layer feed, although some people think that is lower than ideal.

Black oil sunflower seeds have protein ranging from 13% to 16% depending on where I look. That may be too low to be healthy for chickens, but it certainly is not too high.

Sweet feed appears to range from 10% to 12% protein, depending on which brand I look at. That is horribly low for chicken feed.

Catfish pellets may be as high as 35% protein, from what I'm seeing online. But if you were giving those lower-protein foods too, it is quite unlikely that your chickens got enough protein to be harmed.

Of course checking the exact bags of feed that were used would give more exact numbers.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119381106
This page has the abstract of a study about high protein diets in chickens. They specifically mention several previous studies that found problems (poor growth, not death) in chickens fed 35% protein, 38% protein, and 40% protein. So even if your chickens were eating pure catfish food and nothing else, they would probably not get enough protein to drop dead. And why they would all drop dead at once, after more than a week on the changed diet, I have no idea.

(But those other foods are not a good diet for chickens, so avoiding them may be in the long-term best interests of any new chickens, even if the reason for avoiding them is wrong.)

 

[WildHair]

Your feed may be the problem put a magnet in it to make sure it doesn't have metal in it .and chickens cannot eat ground Cobb it suffocate them

I bought a bag of scratch from local feed store and it was very dusty, they wouldn't touch it. i wonder if it was cob dust? i'm glad you mentioned this, thank you