Posted in City Chickens
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Well, the chickens were fun up until yesterday morning. The first thing was I went out to check for eggs and they had smooshed one and were eating it. I was a little disappointed, but I'd heard of that happening. As long as it doesn't become a habit, I think it will be okay. Then, early yesterday afternoon (I didn't work on Friday), I went out to check on them and one of the Araucanas (Josephine... Brannan named her after Joseph's coat of many colors) was all bloody and missing feathers right where her back meets her tailfeathers. The other three kept pecking at her and making it worse. I can't figure out how she got injured other than they were fighting. There's nothing in their pen for them to get hurt on. So, I had no choice but to separate her from the others. Unfortunately, I had nothing to put her in and I live in town and was hesitant to let her loose, but decided that there really wasn't any other option. So I took my chances and let her loose. She stayed really close (20 - 30 ft) to her friends in the tractor. I was afraid that something might get her after dark so I put her back in the pen last night, figuring they'd mostly sleep and leave her alone. When I went out this morning, they were bothering her again, so I let her loose and she hung around all day. So, she seems fine now, but I'll probably let her loose again tomorrow, so her injury can heal without the others pecking at her. But, here's the bad news... today, for no apparent reason that I can tell, the other Araucana up and died!  Nothing stuck out at the time, but looking back over the day, I think that something wasn't quite right. A couple hours after I let Josephine loose, I was out working on the yard and found a green egg in the chicken tractor. It had to have been the other Araucana, since the other two chickens in the pen are Rhode Island Reds and lay brown eggs. It had some blood on it and was out in the open. Since the chickens just started laying this week and this was only our 9th egg so far, I wasn't sure if that was normal or not (both the blood and the fact that she laid it out in the open). The other 8 eggs (6 brown and 2 green, I think the green were both hers, but not sure) were all laid in the "house" part of the tractor where their nest is. Anyway, so I did see her around a little bit throughout the day, but not much. Then right before dark, I went to feed them and put Josephine back in the cage and when the other Araucana didn't come out to eat, I moved the tractor up and over her and found her dead! She looked like she buried her head in the dirt and smothered herself. So, I'm a little concerned since I have no idea why she died. I don't think it's related to sanitation since they get fresh food and water and bedding and their tractor is moved regularly. There's nothing that she could have gotten into and eaten to make her sick. Plus, other than Josephine's physical injury, the other ones seem to be fine. But still why would a chicken just die like that? Maybe she had an internal injury from laying eggs? Or maybe it was related to her pecking the injured chicken... Maybe she got sick from that? (The injury didn't seem that bad.) Maybe she just wasn't feeling well and accidentally killed herself? I know chickens are too bright, but they don't seem dumb enough to kill themselves like that either. (I'm grasping at straws here!) I just don't know, and the fun of raising chickens is momentarily gone. I'm hoping the others will be all right and that there was just something wrong, like an internal defect or something, that caused her to die. If Josephine heals up alright and nobody else gets sick, I guess I'll feel better, but this is definitely not something that I expected to have to deal with.
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