Cackle hatchery's Hatchery Surprise- Anybody got this before?

[LunarBug]

Even baby silkies make great foster mothers. <3

 

[scorpian5]

We got our chicks this past Friday and 7 did where dead in the box and as of today noon we are up to 16 dead. We have never lost this many chicks in an order. the rest of the surprise chicks seem to be doing alright

 

[SlipsWife]

We got our chicks this past Friday and 7 did where dead in the box and as of today noon we are up to 16 dead. We have never lost this many chicks in an order. the rest of the surprise chicks seem to be doing alright

We had a lot of issues with our surprise order. Do you thinking it was shipping stress? We lost at least a chick a day, one day 3, for an entire week. We've never has losses past 24/48 hrs, other than predators. All of ours arrived alive though. About half the order seemed spunky so it made it look like they were all moving around like crazy. Most of our losses were houdans/silkies/polish.

 

[dealfinder500]

Wow! I guess I'm the lucky one. I only had one die, and that was my fault (too many of them trying to get to the water at once, and he got chilled and trampled, I think it was a bantam OEG, so he was pretty small).

 

[clovepink]

SlipsWife and scorpian5: Have you spoken to the hatchery? Is this an outbreak of something?

 

[Serenity30]

I had a hatch date the same as slips and I had a 3/10/14 for 2 surprises total. Only death we had was a splayed leg bantam. We tried to help the little one but ask quick as he came, he went.

 

[clovepink]

Glad to hear the wee bantam was the only casualty. Wonder why they had so many losses. Did you get many of the breeds they had the most losses in?

 

[popsicle]

I lost similar numbers and to a similar fate as SlipsWife. Several chicks would just give up and fade away. I'm very much suspecting "Mushy Chick"--which is an incubation issue (as far as I know) so it would make sense that not all chicks were afflicted. If it were a feed issue, or something else you would think all the chicks would have had symptoms.

This was by far the most challenging batch of chicks I've ever dealt with.

 

[scorpian5]

I emailed them this morning they replied only that i didn't report them within 24 hours and they only refund for dead on arrival minus any extra. I wont be ordering from them again.

 

[popsicle]

I guess I'm not too sore about the whole ordeal. I will order from Cackle again, but I might not go with the Hatchery Surprise. I usually count on selling the breeds I don't want, and this time I was VERY hesitant to sell any of these chicks. All the breeds I specifically ordered were in much better condition--larger, healthier, no losses, etc.