M
member 593900
Guest
I pre-ordered 100 white American Bresse from Dunlap Hatchery earlier this year, vaccination for Merek’s included, and got my first shipment of 50 day-old chicks in the mail on Friday. 1 DOA, nothing unusual there. I moved them into the brooder with little fanfare and left the DOA out back for the turkey vultures.
The first time I went to check on them about an hour later, one chick was notably more lethargic than the others. It was laying down and shaking, unable to breathe from it’s nose, and gasping for air through thick, bubbly saliva. I had a coccidiosis outbreak last fall, and since the symptoms in this chick looked similar, I immediately administered liquid amprolium and electrolytes with a dropper directly into his mouth. I tried to get him through it, but when he was showing no signs of improvement and hadn’t opened his eyes in an hour, I decided to end his suffering. Sad, but again, nothing unusual. I administered liquid amprolium to the whole flock as a precaution.
Later that day, I did a second check and noticed two things. One, a number of chicks were having issues with their legs - not true spraddle leg, but lots of them with just one leg sticking out at an angle. Two, a chick was dead in the waterer - clearly drowned, despite the water being less than 1/2” deep in a chick-appropriate waterer, which it made me wonder if this one also suffered from a leg problem that prevented him from simply picking himself up when he fell in.
We had an uneventful weekend, until today. Everyone was fine at the morning check, and 6 more were dead at the evening check. The majority of those remaining aren’t looking so good, including one who I’m confident will be #7 by sunset.
I’ve already mailed the 2 dead from arrival day to my local university lab for a necropsy, and will mail in all other dead as they come. I’m very nervous about this spreading to my laying flock. Of course I’ll do everything I can for the remaining chicks, but it begs the question: what the hell?
The first time I went to check on them about an hour later, one chick was notably more lethargic than the others. It was laying down and shaking, unable to breathe from it’s nose, and gasping for air through thick, bubbly saliva. I had a coccidiosis outbreak last fall, and since the symptoms in this chick looked similar, I immediately administered liquid amprolium and electrolytes with a dropper directly into his mouth. I tried to get him through it, but when he was showing no signs of improvement and hadn’t opened his eyes in an hour, I decided to end his suffering. Sad, but again, nothing unusual. I administered liquid amprolium to the whole flock as a precaution.
Later that day, I did a second check and noticed two things. One, a number of chicks were having issues with their legs - not true spraddle leg, but lots of them with just one leg sticking out at an angle. Two, a chick was dead in the waterer - clearly drowned, despite the water being less than 1/2” deep in a chick-appropriate waterer, which it made me wonder if this one also suffered from a leg problem that prevented him from simply picking himself up when he fell in.
We had an uneventful weekend, until today. Everyone was fine at the morning check, and 6 more were dead at the evening check. The majority of those remaining aren’t looking so good, including one who I’m confident will be #7 by sunset.
I’ve already mailed the 2 dead from arrival day to my local university lab for a necropsy, and will mail in all other dead as they come. I’m very nervous about this spreading to my laying flock. Of course I’ll do everything I can for the remaining chicks, but it begs the question: what the hell?