Chicken sudden death

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SarahS
One of our new wyandotte bantams, with us a week, and about a year old, has had a lovely day: dustbathing, foraging and enjoying the September sunshine. This evening while they were still all out in the garden she suddenly sank down on the grass, twisted her neck right back, fitted for a minute or so, and died.

Obviously all a bit of a shock, but our biggest concern now is that we've done something wrong, or she's found and eaten something in the garden that is poisonous. I've looked her over and couldn't see anything obviously wrong.

She wasn't laying because she had just left her seven-week-old chicks and was moulting. She was eating and seemed lively.

chickpea
I'm sorry to read about this, Sarah. I've no idea what might have caused it, but I'm not really an expert at all. I hope you do find out what it was. If it's something that's a danger to your other chickens you'll want to keep them safe, or if it's just "one of those things" you can stop worying about it.

Richard
Oh dear, that must have been awlful watching. I do feel sorry for you.

Chickens, like most creatures, seem to know what they can and cannot eat, so I wouldn't have thought she would have picked up something from the garden unless it was mixed with something else.

I'm no expert on Poultry health either. I can only think it is something purely out of the ordinary and like humans, they must have conditions as well.
Most diseases in chickens show symptons.

Like chickpea says, just keep an eye on the others for a few days and observe any unusual behaviour. If one does so, isolate her from the others and seek further help.

I do hope all is well, but wouldn't worry too much.

Keep us up-dated please.

SarahS
Thank you for your kind replies. The other three seem to be just fine so I've stopped worrying now, but at first every time one of them sat down I was over to see if they were still alive!

One upside is that whereas before we had two pairs of hens who didn't really mix much (slept on opposite perches), we now have a threesome who snug up together. Which is quite heartwarming: life goes on and all that.

RosemaryS
Very sorry to hear of your chooks sudden death. Many years ago I had a lovely flock of mixed breed bantams (which incidentally were all killed later by a fox). One day I was watching them, they'd had nothing out of the ordinary to eat, but a beautiful silver grey hen who had been scratching quite happily, suddenly dropped down - dead. I can only assume, that like us, chickens can have fatal heart attacks. It is upsetting, though.