Chick Died

One of my RIRs died last night.This morning I found her stretched out on the bedding, died.. it was very depressing for me.
One of the things that's really eating at me, is that I don't know how.
She was being less active then the others (this was just the other day) and I noticed that she was smaller and lighter then the others. However, she was still eating, drinking, and running around. One thing I really noticed is that she seemed a bit slower, her reaction time was a bit delayed then the others.
Please help, I don't know what killed her.

Zealo said:

One of my RIRs died last night.This morning I found her stretched out on the bedding, died.. it was very depressing for me.
One of the things that's really eating at me, is that I don't know how.
She was being less active then the others (this was just the other day) and I noticed that she was smaller and lighter then the others. However, she was still eating, drinking, and running around. One thing I really noticed is that she seemed a bit slower, her reaction time was a bit delayed then the others.
Please help, I don't know what killed her.

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I sorry that it died! I know how depressing it is. She might of been sick when you got her. Did you hatch them yourself or did you buy them? If you bought them she might of been stressed from moving from one place to another, the same thing happened to me with one of my chicks last year and they were bought.

Thanks Family Farm

However, they were all fine when they arrived here from the post office, that was on the 15.
they were little fluff balls of energy and were all healthy.
She only just started showing symptoms the other day. When they first arrived, she was the biggest RIR out of the 2, but she just wasn't growing like the others. She was feathering out like the rest of them, it was just her size that seemed to be lacking.

Zealo said:

Thanks Family Farm

However, they were all fine when they arrived here from the post office, that was on the 15.
they were little fluff balls of energy and were all healthy.
She only just started showing symptoms the other day. When they first arrived, she was the biggest RIR out of the 2, but she just wasn't growing like the others. She was feathering out like the rest of them, it was just her size that seemed to be lacking.

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Hmmmm...........
Its very easy for chicks to die because there baby chicks. But I'm still puzzled.

My chicks roam around the brooder happily and are not showing signs of being cold or over heated. Their also not pasting.
The only thing I can think of is that she could of gotten a parasite, but then wouldn't my other chicks be showing symptoms too?

Its pretty unlikely they'd have picked up a parasite, and even if they did, it shouldn't be enough to overload them at this point. If it were something like cocci, she'd have gone down much faster than what you described, I'd think.

Some chicks just aren't healthy from the get go, be it due to genetics or nutritional deficiencies in the birds that produced them. Here we call this failure to thrive. Its a sad thing when it happens, but usually no amount of TLC brings them back around. And, if you do manage to get them going again, they tend to have issues as they mature. That's been my experience anyway.

Sorry about your chick dying, its a sad thing and tends to leave one feeling helpless and scratching their head

Thank you Funky chicken


This is the first time I've raised chicks, so the lose was very hard and shocking.
I kept wondering if there was something I wasn't doing right, or something I did wrong, that caused her death. But knowing that it might have been something I couldn't stop, makes me feel a little better at the situation.

It could easily have been coccidiosis, it kills chicks pretty fast. They can look slow one day and be dead the next morning. That is always my first suspicion in young chicks that were previously active and doing well. You should keep a very close eye on the others and at the first sign of any other chick acting slow, sleeping more then usual or not eating/drinking as usual then run a course of Corid. Or, if you want to be extra safe, you can just run a course of Corid anyway so you can rule out that possibility. It never does any harm to treat, all it will do is control any cocci they may have in their gut at the moment from overwhelming them. Always good to keep Corid on hand when raising chicks so it's handy when you need it.

Other then that, there could certainly have been other issues with this chick as well, simple failure to thrive or some other problem inside that prevented her from growing as she should.

Quote: Other then her being slow, there was no other signs of cocci. But nonetheless, I'll keep a close eye on the others and run a course of Corid anyway to make sure.

Will a teaspoon a gallon be alright to give the chicks?