How often do your birds die?

[d000hg]

We've been keeping a flock of 6-8 chickens for about 5 years. Our first batch were ones we hatched ourselves for a school project and kept, then we've bought two additional 'waves' at PoL.
Our very last bird from the original batch died recently and in total we have had 16 birds (I think). One of our most recent batch (a year old) seems to have just fallen over dead today leaving us with 6.

That seems like quite a high turnover to me. Our birds have a good size outdoor run as well as a covered 'indoor run'. In nearly every case a bird goes with 24hrs from being fine to "seems a bit off" to "dead". No obvious illness and the others are fine. Sometimes they're outside, sometimes they just don't come out of the coop in the morning.

I'm just curious what the norm is for losing birds, in others' experience? Is it normal for a bird to keel over at short notice every now and then?

[Nicos]

Yep - I’ve had quite a few like that.
We usually have between 8 and 12 birds but have had up to 20 at any one time over the past 12 years.
Most have died the way you describe.
Mine have generally died between the ages of one and eight and they too have a large outdoor run .