Starting chickens, with a disaster

[Luv Ducks]

I have ordered shipped ducklings before twice from Metzer Farms. They have good stock and do good with communication if there is a problem. I did not want to order in March because of the colder nights but out of desperation did. Shipping is hard on them and I got fragile little Call Ducks to start with. One had problems but I was able to work with it and it is fine now. I would only trust Metzer myself as I have seen so many bad reviews from others on here from other hatcheries. I pray that your next shipment if you do decide to order again comes healthy to you. 69 hours is too long to be in transit for that many birds. Mine only took 2 days to get to me from Tennessee to Ohio but years ago I ordered Mallards and they came from California and were just fine. Welcome to BYC, it's a great site with lots of people willing to help you out.

 

[Kenneth Zweerink]

Welcome to BackYard Chickens. And a Big Hello from Eastern Nebraska. What a terrible ordeal to go through. The Best of Luck with the remaining Chick and your next order.

 

[Tookie]

Welcome! Nice to meet you. So sorry for what happened. Good luck with your one chick!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello Molly, and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Good luck with your chick.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hi Molly, sorry for your experience. Alert the hatchery ASAP and they will in all likelihood either re-ship your order or refund your money, whichever you choose.

The first thing to do when you receive chicks is to hydrate them. I give mine warm sugar water (1 tsp sugar to a quart of water). I dunk their beaks in it because they don't know how to drink yet. They can't digest food until their little stomachs are hydrated. After I've hydrated all of them (usually a dozen), then I go back and dunk them in the water again, and I also dip their beaks in their crumbles. At this point they all start running around like crazy, drinking and eating. Since you only had the one survivor, hydrating and feeding would have been the order of the day. Sounds like you did the best you could. Your little one needs the chick starter for the best nutrition, and fresh clean water. Every other day you might give it water with electrolytes, or put in two waterers, one with fresh water and one with electrolytes so it has a choice. Change both daily. Good luck!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

PS, we order chicks quite often with good results. Only twice have we lost chicks like you did. The first time a freak blizzard delayed our order. The second time a holiday interfered. In neither case was the hatchery at fault and in both cases we got a new shipment and everybody was fine.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Welcome to BYC! I'm so sorry!

 

[fowltemptress]

PS, we order chicks quite often with good results. Only twice have we lost chicks like you did. The first time a freak blizzard delayed our order. The second time a holiday interfered. In neither case was the hatchery at fault and in both cases we got a new shipment and everybody was fine.

Wait, what? A blizzard I understand, but there is no reason a holiday should have interfered with the well being of live animals. That is a major screw up.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

Hi, I'm Molly, totally new to chicken husbandry. Here's my tldr; intro to this forum: I have some acreage in New York and am making a closed loop growing system on my land. Chickens seem like the best way to get hot compostable manure on site, so I ordered 8 buff orps from McMurray back in Nov for April delivery. My chicken coop/run will easily take 20 chickens so that's where I'm heading, but I decided to start small and add over time as my skills improve.

McMurray took the chicks to the post office at 4:45 on Weds last week so they sat overnight there. Long story short, it took them 69 hours of travel to get to me on Sat, and when I got them the box was beat to shit with 9 dead/dying chicks in it. One dead and 6 so weak they were almost dead. 2 looked like they might make it. I hand fed them all (yolk, molasses, electrolyte slurry) with a syringe but they all gave up and died but one. She is in my laundry room in a tote bin with a heat lamp at one end and a brooder plate at the other. The first day she was alone, she was screaming hysterically all day so I spent time with her on my chest on a heat pad, enclosed in my hands (trying to recreate a hen experience) and she calmed down and slept like a rock.

She has had a lot of pasty butt but we've dealt with it. Yesterday she had no visible pasty butt but wasn't pooping at all and looked like she was really straining to go but couldn't. She hadn't pooped all day and was bent over in the poopy position and I could see her straining to go and gradually weakening, so I stroked her abdomen gently with my finger from underneath her for a while hoping to trigger some successful paristalsis (and even if not it just seemed to feel really good to her) and after a while poop came out!

Now she is eating well (Grubbly chick crumbles softened with her drinking water) and drinking (water with electrolytes and a tiny amount of plain yogurt and molasses), and she's starting to make what looks like normal bird poop. She isn't distress calling but mostly just chattering. Still don't know if she will make it.

I have reserved 6 more chicks from Agway for Friday. I have so many questions:

1) Will it be OK to put chicks in with her that are a week younger?
2) Is it to be expected that chicks from the feed store or the mail are always going to have potentially lethal digestive system issues? Are they ever just healthy?
3) Apart from correct temperature, what else can I do to bring their stress level down when they arrive?
4) Is this slurry of yolk, electrolyte water and molasses the correct rescue formula or is there something better?

Thank you for any guidance, and very nice to meet you all! I'm going to read everything about this I can find on this form now...

This is why I had my aunt drive me an hour to Coshocton to get a box of quail eggs!(eleven hatched by the way ) some of those postal workers haven’t got a clue! Don’t worry about it, the big one will be happy to have friends, and there are so many little birds that they will most likely not be picked on.

 

[Kkoleckar]

Hi, I'm Molly, totally new to chicken husbandry. Here's my tldr; intro to this forum: I have some acreage in New York and am making a closed loop growing system on my land. Chickens seem like the best way to get hot compostable manure on site, so I ordered 8 buff orps from McMurray back in Nov for April delivery. My chicken coop/run will easily take 20 chickens so that's where I'm heading, but I decided to start small and add over time as my skills improve.

McMurray took the chicks to the post office at 4:45 on Weds last week so they sat overnight there. Long story short, it took them 69 hours of travel to get to me on Sat, and when I got them the box was beat to shit with 9 dead/dying chicks in it. One dead and 6 so weak they were almost dead. 2 looked like they might make it. I hand fed them all (yolk, molasses, electrolyte slurry) with a syringe but they all gave up and died but one. She is in my laundry room in a tote bin with a heat lamp at one end and a brooder plate at the other. The first day she was alone, she was screaming hysterically all day so I spent time with her on my chest on a heat pad, enclosed in my hands (trying to recreate a hen experience) and she calmed down and slept like a rock.

She has had a lot of pasty butt but we've dealt with it. Yesterday she had no visible pasty butt but wasn't pooping at all and looked like she was really straining to go but couldn't. She hadn't pooped all day and was bent over in the poopy position and I could see her straining to go and gradually weakening, so I stroked her abdomen gently with my finger from underneath her for a while hoping to trigger some successful paristalsis (and even if not it just seemed to feel really good to her) and after a while poop came out!

Now she is eating well (Grubbly chick crumbles softened with her drinking water) and drinking (water with electrolytes and a tiny amount of plain yogurt and molasses), and she's starting to make what looks like normal bird poop. She isn't distress calling but mostly just chattering. Still don't know if she will make it.

I have reserved 6 more chicks from Agway for Friday. I have so many questions:

1) Will it be OK to put chicks in with her that are a week younger?
2) Is it to be expected that chicks from the feed store or the mail are always going to have potentially lethal digestive system issues? Are they ever just healthy?
3) Apart from correct temperature, what else can I do to bring their stress level down when they arrive?
4) Is this slurry of yolk, electrolyte water and molasses the correct rescue formula or is there something better?

Thank you for any guidance, and very nice to meet you all! I'm going to read everything about this I can find on this form now...

I had this same thing happen to me. My pullets are now around 10 weeks old and 11 weeks old.tsc sent me 10 and 7 died right away and then they sent me replacements and ended up sending me 10 more instead, and they figured it out. I played referee for the first 24 hrs and had to add a second water dish but like I said they figured it out and were just fine