08/05/2024
It finally happened - a totally unexplained death on the farmstead.
One of my three Favorelles roosters recently passed and we will never know why for sure. In the morning he was fine and then several hours later, dead. We did an autopsy and found nothing wrong, not even a broken neck. The weather has been hot and smokey due to wildfires recently.
I think the poor bird had a heart attack from heat, poor air quality and just living at an elevation their body type might not be best suited to. We are actively watching for any other deaths, which could mean some sort of contagious pathogen, but so far everyone else is normal.
It's probably one of the hardest parts of having livestock - you are guaranteed to at some point have dead stock and you might never know why it died. Living with the uncertainty is tough; could I have done something different to prevent it? Was he just an ill-formed bird? Ultimately it seems all you can do is use the knowledge we have at hand and hope we can learn more to improve for the future.
