Yesterday, Susan noticed that one of our new chickens (born in February and raised in a box in the garage then immigrated into the real chicken yard in July) was showing signs of distress - rapid breathing etc. We thought it might just be the heat. But this morning we found the chicken dead under the chicken house. It was one of the beautiful Buff Orpingtons that are solid yellow so now there are two left. I got it out and left it in the edge of the woods a ways away so that another animal would have some food (we have lots of black vultures and turkey vultures around here and they have to eat too).
Nevertheless it was a little sad because we had bought this hen (and 4 others) when they were 1-2 weeks old. So now we have 9 hens and one rooster.
I chatted with Peter Efland at Efland Milling Company as to what causes chickens to suddenly die - he's our expert. Peter says that sometimes it can be a rat but they usually attack when the chicken is on the roost at night and that was not the case here. It's rarely a snake as an adult hen can defend herself OK (although snakes do eat eggs). Because one of the hens had been laying enormous eggs at times (like the size of goose eggs - they would not even fit in an extra large egg carton,m we theorized that maybe she was egg-bound - something new for us but Peter says it happens. Could also have just been a chicken sickness of unknown kind. Who knows, as we did not do an autopsy.
Anyway we get about 6 eggs per day now and that's still plenty for us to eat and give away.
Life on the farm is interesting.
Looking forward to some cooler weather soon!
Dwight
