Silkie bantam died

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Question

Silkie bantam died: Our Silky bantam hen seemed to be falling over on its side a lot and within an hour died. She seemed fine yesterday.

The hen was almost a year. The coop was in the garage. We did have another bantam in there who was younger. We would appreciate any help. Thank you

Answer
I’m so sorry you lost her. I really wish I could help you understand why this happened, so you could prevent anything like this from happening again.

There are so many things that affect chicken health, so many possible things that can go wrong. The good news is that most chickens, well cared for are hearty little survivors.

In my experience, the most common problem is parasites, internal and external. They hide inside or under feathers and the feathers prevent us from noticing weight loss in our chickens. Chickens are flock and prey animals.

It’s part of their nature to put up a good front when not feeling well to avoid drawing the attention of predators and even flock mates that might pick on them.

That’s one reason some chickens just seem to die suddenly, without much or any warning.

The fact is that by the time they act sick, they may have been sick for weeks, and can no longer keep up appearances.

There are other possibilities to explain the falling over, like toxins, different debilitating diseases, ear infection, and heart problems, just to name a few.

To get an accurate diagnosis for a specific disease, testing must be done, usually droppings. It would be good to test the other Banty, to see if it has any signs of disease.

You mentioned the coop was in the garage and I’m wondering if this hen was able to get out in the sun shine on a regular basis.

If not, she may have been suffering from vitamin deficiencies. I wish I could think of more to possibly help.

I would definitely check the other Banty over and look for signs of parasites. Lice can collect in clusters kind of under feathers and mites generally cause some kind of skin irritations and can cause feather loss with their annoying bites.

Worms may be seen in droppings, but not usually. They can take over the digestive tract of a chicken taking the best nutrients, leaving a well fed chicken malnourished in appearance.

A healthy normal weight chicken should have a pretty smooth chest. When under nourished, their body will absorb those big muscles to keep them alive and their keel bone that runs up and down the center of the breast muscles feels sharp.

You could be feeding good feed and plenty of it, and the chicken eating normally, but with parasites stealing important nutrients, they can literally starve to death.

I think just about every chicken keeper has made this shocking discovery once or twice in their flock unless they use chemical treatments regularly.

What I’ve mentioned here are probably some of the most common reasons a chicken would lose its balance and die so quickly.

It would be important to assume this little hen had something contagious and thoroughly clean and disinfect the coop. Diluted bleach works best and once the fumes are gone there is no harm to chickens. I hope this helps.

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