My Golden Comet Nettie died this past November. She acted listless, puffed all her feathers up and her normally perky tail pointed down for months. Oh, she'd have a good day now and then, but for months it was like she just didnt feel well. I checked her for an egg backup, even inserting an eyedropper full of oliveoil into her eggduct. This wasnt the problem. I wormed her, and I tried Terramycin in an eyedropper. She continued being listless, wanted to sit in one spot and just doze. She died peacefully enough in the house listening to Judy Garland. Does anyone know what this could have been? Old Age at 2??

-- Michele Rae Padgett (michelesmelodyfarm@Yahoo.com), March 08, 2001

Answers

Its definately NOT old age... Any ideas would only be guesses at this point.

If it ever happens again, the best way to tell what's going on with any animal is to study the carcass. Sorry, no nice way to put it. With birds, rabbits, and to a certain extent the larger animals (goats, sheep), if you can't tell by the feces, you look at the liver and intestines.

A rather morbid sounding side benefit to this is that if you discover that the animal did not have disease or parasites, you find out if the meat is edible. That's the only way to tell about that in these cases.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), March 08, 2001.

If she was a good and steady egg producer, most likely she died of "sudden death syndrome" which affects heavy egg producers, it is a mineral imbalance that starts to interfere with the heart rate and rhythym as the calcium/magnesium balance gets farther and farther out of whack. Even though it is called "sudden", it can actually take weeks or a month to be fatal, most folks really don't notice the subtle signs at the start of the syndrome itself. I have lost several hens over the years to this, despite the best of diets and care, we breed for egg production, not longevity, so something has to give occasionally, like this.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), March 08, 2001.

I have golden comets too, and every once in awhile I'd lose a chicken that way too. Sometimes I can tell if something isn't right, like the hen would be off by itself & listless for a month and then it would die (which is rare).

-- David Cripe (cripeland@aol.com), March 08, 2001.

Hens should not be forced to listen to Judy Garland.That's probably what did her in.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), March 08, 2001.

All responses were appreciated. I had heard before that it could have been her heart, she was a great egg layer until the last 2 months. Next time I will open up the hen and try to examine it, but I cant eat them, they are like family!!! By the way, Judy Garland was the greatest entertainer this world has yet known!!! (my opinion) Thanks all.

-- Michele Rae Padgett (michelesmelodyfarm@Yahoo.com), March 13, 2001.

Postmortem Examination http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/rojo1/post.html

Postmortem Findings http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/rojo1/postmort.html

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), March 15, 2001.