I just got 150 babies from Ideal on Friday. They should have come Thursday, but they seemed ok on arrival, 4 fading but the rest ok.
Overnight we lost 11. Everyone had their beaks dipped and a good drink on arrival. They got grogel and Dumor feed out of the same bag that my 3 week old home bred chicks (housed in a different barn) were eating.
We chalked it up to shipping stress, but at the oon Saturday check, 3 more were gone. All the rest of the day Saturday we observed them closely. Poops are normal, they are warm and not piling. They are in a brooder room that hasn't been used in 2 years. I cleaned and bleached it, let it air for 2 days, put a sprinkle of barn lime on the floor and a small amount of pine livestock shavings.
The babies will seem active and normal, then take a widelegged stance with their wings spread and slightly drooping. They seem off-balance. They have empty crops when we see them like this and some are dehydrated. They refuse food but will drink when their beaks are dipped or when given a drop from a q-tip.
But no matter how much TLC, they soon seize and die.
There are too many to catch them when they first stop eating, the first symptom we can see is that stance.
There is NO pasty butt or loose poo or anything that says cocci. We've lost 21 since getting them Friday morning (counting those nearly gone on arrival)
I'd think any that were going to die of shipping stress would have done it in the first 36 hours, but we're past that and losing them in this weird way.
Any ideas? Please?
Overnight we lost 11. Everyone had their beaks dipped and a good drink on arrival. They got grogel and Dumor feed out of the same bag that my 3 week old home bred chicks (housed in a different barn) were eating.
We chalked it up to shipping stress, but at the oon Saturday check, 3 more were gone. All the rest of the day Saturday we observed them closely. Poops are normal, they are warm and not piling. They are in a brooder room that hasn't been used in 2 years. I cleaned and bleached it, let it air for 2 days, put a sprinkle of barn lime on the floor and a small amount of pine livestock shavings.
The babies will seem active and normal, then take a widelegged stance with their wings spread and slightly drooping. They seem off-balance. They have empty crops when we see them like this and some are dehydrated. They refuse food but will drink when their beaks are dipped or when given a drop from a q-tip.
But no matter how much TLC, they soon seize and die.
There are too many to catch them when they first stop eating, the first symptom we can see is that stance.
There is NO pasty butt or loose poo or anything that says cocci. We've lost 21 since getting them Friday morning (counting those nearly gone on arrival)
I'd think any that were going to die of shipping stress would have done it in the first 36 hours, but we're past that and losing them in this weird way.
Any ideas? Please?