Bleachwater *edit* not the likely cause of death, thanks!

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! I bounced around deciding where to ask this, and this seems as good a place as any. If it needs to be moved, then please do.

When I bleach my 'chicken stuff' weekly, I have always done it at one time in my wheelbarrow (it's big enough I can bleach hatchers at the same time).
I had a bucketful of bleachwater for some 'in between' stuff that needed cleaning and I caught a *bantam rooster drinking from the bucket yesterday --- there was clean fresh water available just 2 feet from the bleachwater bucket.
I shooed him away and went back to cleaning and filling waterers.
When I came back through a few minutes later, he was just standing like he was in a daze. I went to pick him up to move him out of my way and he flopped over in my hands! He was dead already but still standing.

Could bleachwater be that toxic, that quickly?
Honestly, it's the strangest thing I've EVER seen.
*He was a Frizzle NN bantam boy that was going through a heavy spring molt.
Thanks!

Lisa

 

[krcote]

YIKES! I have no idea but that is horrible.... and only a tiny bit funny

 

[ellieroo]

My DH has always put a 1/2tbs per gallon of water twice a week in waterers for years but your concentration was no doubt much more ... so sorry!

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! It is funny in the context of funny/queer/strange/odd/unexplainable, but disturbing.
The mix was about 1/2 cup bleach to 4 gallons of water and soap added --- a cleaning bucket. I never thought a chicken would hop up and drink from it.
Or have such a drastic reaction.

Lisa

 

[Tala]

Well, I never bleach any of my chicken equipment except the incubator after a hatch --- that might change if we had an "outbreak" of something and I was starting over, but for now I see no need to be that drastic in cleaning their stuff. They eat dirt and drink out of mud puddles, so why bother?

It sounds like your bleach routine is doing more harm than good.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! That's entirely possible. I bleach everything associated with chicks and youngsters because cocci is an ongoing issue here.

It sounds like your bleach routine is doing more harm than good.

In the case of this particular bird, it did him way more harm than good (he was alone in drinking from the bleachbucket).

Lisa​

 

[speckledhen]

Gee, that's awful, Lisa! Oh, BTW, bleach will not kill the oocysts that cause cocci. Ammonia kills the oocysts.
We also fill the big wheelbarrow with mild bleach solution to clean all the waterers. Makes it really easy, but we do it while birds are penned up and can't drink the water that gets dumped on the ground. Those darn birds just find all sorts of ways to do themselves in.
I think the bleach plus the soap probably did it.

 

[chickbird]

Quote:
I DON'T THINK 1/2 CUP BLEACH TO 4 GALLONS OF WATER WOULD KILL YOUR CHICK....MAYBE SOMETHING IN THE SOAP OR SOMETHING NOT RELATED TO THIS...REMEMBER MOST CITIES'TOWNS USE CHLORINE IN OUR DRINKING WATER...WHERE I LIVE ON THE DAYS THEY DUMP IT IN, THE WATER SMELLS AND TASTES HEAVILY OF CHLORINE FOR SEVERAL DAYS AFTER THIS.... ALSO CHLORINE IN LARGE QUANTITIES ARE USED IN SWIMMING POOLS.

 

[gritsar]

So sorry you lost your roo. I actually use bleach cleaner to clean my waterers and other chickie stuff. I've learned to do if far away from the chickens - I bring their stuff into the fenced yard, where they can't go - for exactly this reason. They'll drink any puddles that result.

 

[twentynine]

WOW!

How much bleach did you have in that solution?

I got to say, if he died that fast he had to have some sort of outstanding health issue, totally unrelated to the bleach. Even if the bleach would have poisoned him I can't imagine that his death would have been so quick. I have seen poisoned animals, and I can tell you in most all cases it is a slow painful death.

Furthermore I have chickens drink everything from paint to turpintine, I have seen them drink water that wasn't fit for a turtle to swim in, all seemingly without ill effect. So I think you had a rooster that got "called up" by coincidence.