# Height flock turnover- help!



## greeneyedchicken (Sep 22, 2014)

Hi everyone,

We are pretty new to the chicken scene but we are having pretty high turn over. We started with 4 day olds in March of 2013. The dog ate one- learned that lesson! Then, that May, I added 1 hen ( Midnight) from my classroom hatch the rest were roosters. She got what we thought was vent gleet in the middle of a cold spell in January. We gave her a warm bath, Epsom salt drops and kept her inside but she died. Then in May of 2014 we found our Buff Orphington, Abby ( 1yr, 2 months) dead by the compost bin. A sudden thunder storm came that afternoon and we thought she maybe had a heart attack, no signs of trauma or anything . We added 4 from another classroom hatch (barn yard mix) in June. In early august we found Elsa ( 3 months) laying in the coop again, no signs of trauma just dead. Now tonight out brahama, Happy ( 1 1/2) is dead. She had labored breathing and was just laying around in the coop. Yesterday she layed an egg and was running around like normal. Today, no egg and just laying around. 

Our chickens live in a pretty big coop with an attached run. We let them free range in our yard during the day and the coop is locked at night. They have pine shavings in the coop, organic layer feed and fresh water with 3 tablespoons of Apple cider vinegar. I give them plain yogurt on Sundays and they get kitchen scraps too, mostly toast crusts, and veggie scraps. They are our family pets And we are outside with them every day. 
Is this just really bad luck or are we doing something totally wrong? It seems to me that all of the deaths are not the same except for Abby and Elsa. Any advice is appreciated. 


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## greeneyedchicken (Sep 22, 2014)

High flock turnover, darn auto correct!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It could very well be bad luck. The only way you can know what might be going on is having the state do a necropsy. 

Problem with so many of these unexplained deaths is that there is no answer to why even with a necropsy. And if its a birth defect its not something we can see until they fall over.


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