Breed and Chick Hardiness

[ATeacherChick]

What is your experience with whether breed affects chick health, vitality, and tendency to thrive/fail to thrive? While i know there are a multitude of factors aside from breed, I was hoping for input on that specific topic... I'm raising a batch of Rural King chicks, and my single Sebright,the Polish and Sicilian Buttercups are thriving, ALL the Jap Bantams died, all but one of the blue Sumatras died, the silkies are doing well except for one that has been weak from the start, but even it has made it through the first week. And all the dark Brahma are thriving. Most upsetting was the loss of my two lavender Orpington chicks, hard to find and expensive! They were eating and active one day, dead the next: (

 

[Folly's place]

What a sad experience! I haven't had every breed that you've mentioned, but still, it seems to me that it's more about conditions rather than breed. They may have come in different shipments to RC, with different UPS trips, some longer than others. Different hatcheries?
Then, did they have issues in your brooder with competition for resources?
The very worst episode I've ever had was years ago, a shipment of chicks that had 10% losses over ten days, likely due to shipping problems.
More information might be helpful here too.
I'm so sorry for your losses!
Mary

 

[50-45-1]

Sound to me like you have a sickness or diesese running rampet through some of your coops or runs.
So many factors could cause the efect you are describing. I believe you are dealing with more than one.
Ive had most of the breeds you mention and never lost any except to preditors and an ocasional egg bound or something explainable.
Confined or free range? How many birds. How much space? What are you feeding? What are the symptoms? Coop size? Fresh water at all times?
If some of your basic chicken enviroment, procedures or overall husbandry is bad, no one breed will whithstand better than the other.
Hope you figure it out.

 

[aart]

What is your experience with whether breed affects chick health, vitality, and tendency to thrive/fail to thrive? While i know there are a multitude of factors aside from breed, I was hoping for input on that specific topic... I'm raising a batch of Rural King chicks, and my single Sebright,the Polish and Sicilian Buttercups are thriving, ALL the Jap Bantams died, all but one of the blue Sumatras died, the silkies are doing well except for one that has been weak from the start, but even it has made it through the first week. And all the dark Brahma are thriving. Most upsetting was the loss of my two lavender Orpington chicks, hard to find and expensive! They were eating and active one day, dead the next: (

Kind of sounds like a hatchery issue, some batches are just not hardy..could be a plethora of reasons.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would agree there was probably something wrong on the hatchery side or the feed store side where chicks didn't get a good start.

 

[ATeacherChick]

Disease simply doesn't make sense, given that whole batches of the other breeds are thriving with no symptoms. I suppose it could have been a shipping issue - if one breed was in a box that got tossed around more, etc. I hadn't thought of that.

I have done some research and Japanese Bantams are known for being a bit fragile, but the others are usually fairly hardly. It was probably the shipping issue.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I didn't mean diseases, I meant if they don't get eating soon enough, or the shipping was too cold or too much for them. They sometimes can't recover. I personally have stopped trying to order d'uccle chicks because they have problems surviving the shipping because they are so small.