14 dead chicks found in coop!

[Penpal]

If they pile up you need to make a curve at each corner, which will spread them out more. You can also put up barriers so that they are in groups too large to suffocate each other.

 

[Project Blue]

I think it might of been a predator. The one chick's back looks denuded in your picture. I doubt it was the cold, especially with so many chicks. I have a transition coop with very small holes in the hard wire, I was also thinking it was predator proof until it wasn't. My problem was one dead chick but had others missing a toe. There were tracks underneath the coop that I thought were armadillo, but later I caught a small raccoon trying to reach through the 1/4 inch openings. Apparently either his tongue or fingers could get in just enough to pull off a single toe, and in one case denude one side of a chick. Your wire openings look bigger. It could be something else entirely, but look for tracks. I set up a couple wildlife cameras and nightly get dogs, and cats and more rarely coyote and other wild life but every single night some kind of predator checks the coop for an opportunity.

 

[wvwzzz]

I think I found out the cause of the mass pile up, I hope this info helps others prevent similar issues in their flocks.
2 days before the pile up I turned off their night light, they didn't seem to have an issue with this at the time. There was pretty bad weather on the days leading up to the pile up, the nights were dark with no external lights.
On the night of the pile up, the weather cleared, this co-coincided with a very bright full moon that rose in the early morning.
I found there was a quirk in the shed design (which has now been changed) that would allow a shaft of light to illuminate a strip on the ground near where the dead chicks were found. I think that the bright full moon was at just the right angle in the early morning to cause this beam of light.
The chicks must have left their playpens and then funneled down into the area of the light and piled on top of each other.

I don't really understand how the chicks can actually smother each other to death without trying to move out of the pile but all I can think of was they were half asleep and the lack of oxygen caused them to have hypoxic feelings which are apparently likened to a confused/warm/drunk/dreamy sensation. This is apparently why hypoxia is dangerous to humans and animals as we don't detect the dangerous lack of oxygen until its too late. From my research pile-ups in chicks and pullets seem to often be reported when chicks are transitioned into dark environments and then experience a event causing a beam of light to illuminate a strip in their coop.

I kept the playpen in place for a couple more weeks, more and more chicks perched on the playpen but still didn't use their wooden perches. In the end it was getting pretty silly with the chicks piling into the playpen every night so I bit the bullet, built another perch, rounded the corners in the shed and took the playpen away. I expected the worst but all the chicks magically perched on the roosts that night and have been doing well since! I still keep a dim night light on in their coop, it seems to help them settle down.

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions!

 

[NatJ]

I think I found out the cause of the mass pile up, I hope this info helps others prevent similar issues in their flocks.

Thank you for sharing this.

It's surprising how many things chickens do that make no sense at all, and then we figure out why and it does start to make sense!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Thanks for updating!

 

[McChooky]

Adding a little light made all the difference to my chickens especially when they were chicks.They always went to roost and never piled up

 

[Debbie292d]

Thanks for the replies everyone, it really helps.

The chicks all survived last night, I have made some improvements to the coop to try and prevent a recurrence. I have fitted a wooden skirt along the corner to cover the timber wall support and to blunt the corner. I have moved a playpen out and installed some wooden perching. Tomorrow I will put fit a grain storage warpaint off cut to one of the walls to prevent drafts and allow me to roll it up for ventilation in summer.

The new roost bars are very popular during the day but none of the chicks use it at night, they are insistent in piling into the remaining playpen with about 30 roosting above on the playpen walls. I am a bit hesitant to remove the playpen as the sides unzip so they can get out if they need to. I'm scared they will pile into the solid wooden corner without the playpen otherwise. I don't know why the perverse chicks can't use their nice perch! It would help my stress levels.

Would you remove the remaining playpen and build more roosts? Really they are too big for it now but they seem determined to pile where ever they go.

I think the deaths were caused either by a fright early morning or they migrated to the corner during the night due to a draft or something.
None of my adult hens seemed fussed so I don't think a predator had been around unless it was a bird of pray or cat prowling on the outside but the chicks were very edgy the morning after the deaths.

I put a couple of photos up, the new perch and corner improvements and how they are instant on sleeping in the playpen.

My sister raises turkeys commercially, with shipments of 1,000 to 2,000 poults. She divides them up into pens within the huge building of 100 or 200, depending. There are four feed/water stations in each pen. Three boom boxes play loud music throughout, so they can't hear thunder or anything else. She sleeps out there their first week (has a tiny bedroom in there), though I don't think that's necessary.

I'm really sorry for your loss. She has a few too.