When I first inherited my bantam chickens, they seemed to have long lives compared to normal chickens. They would cruise past ten years with ease. Ruffled but resilient, hardly ever sick. When death did come, it was the usual feathered drama: a rooster's battle wound from defending his hens, or the quiet, peaceful fade of old age.
Then the last twelve months rewrote everything. In one year, I lost four hens and six roosters. Ten birds. My biggest poultry loss ever.
What I saw
I can't give you a neat timeline. The deaths didn't arrive in a tidy order. But here is what I witnessed across those months:
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One rooster found dead upon opening the coop door one morning. He had appeared perfectly healthy days earlier, even showing his dominance within the flock the day earlier. No symptoms. No warning.
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Four hens - each at different times spread across the twelve months - died the same way. They simply faded. Stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Sat queitly in one corner. Died days later. One of them had even just hatched an egg. Her chicks survived. She did not.
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Some roosters turned pale around the head and face. Their combs looked bleached. They lasted a few weeks, then died.
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Two roosters had vision problems before death. Stumbling. Missing the perch. Then gone.
From my guess, all these birds were around five to eight years old.
The detail that keeps me awake
Seeing that each chicken's illness was not contagious, I did not isolate any of them. In a contagious outbreak, that would have spread illness like wildfire. But it didn't. Healthy birds ate from the same feeder, drank the same water, dust-bathed alongside sick ones. Only certain birds got sick and subsequently died.
So what is it? What caused the illness?
To be honest, I have no idea, but I tend to lean toward rat-borne pathogens.
The older cages are not rat-proof. There are traces of rat droppings around the feeders and bedding. Exposure could happen now and then. A rat visits one month, not the next - that might explain deaths spread over time. Older birds would be more vulnerable, like us humans.
Extreme weather during the last ten years did not help either. Blazing hot temperatures during the day may drop suddenly because of freezing cold winds blowing from the north.
What I don't know
I am not a veterinarian. I didn't perform any tests. I didn't send a body to a lab. All I have are observations and grief.
But I've kept chickens long enough to know when something is wrong. This wasn't old age. This wasn't a fight. This was something else.
What I've changed
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New cages are fully rat-proofed. I have three cages so far.
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Letting my three older cats out at night seems to be doing a good job. Many rodents were caught during the last couple of months.
A final reflection
The coop feels quieter now. Yes, I know I complained about the gender imbalance at one time, but I never wished for this.
If you've seen something similar - sudden death, vision loss, pale faces, hens dying months apart with the same symptoms, all without contagion between birds - please leave a comment. I'm not looking for a diagnosis. Just stories from people who've loved old bantams and lost them too fast.
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