Can chicks die because of bad genes?

[Silvija]

Hello there,
I'm trying to figure out why chicks from my own flock keep dying. I raised quite a few this year, both bought as chicks and hached in incubator by my self, with diferrent results (some very good), but none as bad as chicks from my flock. Even incubated by chicken seemed to be very weak and died just after haching or in a weeks time. I do nothing different with them. My flock is free range and gets best food I can get here. My bantams hach and raise their chicks with no problam in the similar conditions (they are not free ranged). So I started to think maybe problam is with my rooster. He's auracana, but I think that he's more like ameuracana. Man we got him from said that he bought some eggs, hached them, but only roosters survived. He seemed surprised but we bought roo anyway couse he is just gorgeos. I do not have any auracana or ameuracana chickens so it seems far feched to think that roo can pass some bad genes to a mixed breed chick, but I am new enought to be open to possibilities. Any ideas on this would be welcome.
P.S. roo is about year and a half and chickens about a year old.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

First, anything can die from bad or lethal genes.
Is your rooster rumpless? If he has a tail, he's not an Araucana.
I've had 100% male hatches and 100% female hatches but most often 60% female. If you hatch enough you'll see lots of things.
There are other possibilities for poor hatches like breeder nutrition and disease.
What makes up your hens' diet?

 

[Silvija]

Thank you for the ansver. No tail on a rooster but also no tufts so I don't know if its true araucana. They are called araucanas in Lithuania (Europe) were I am from. I understood that letal gene comes with tufts... My hens get chicken food, but not always for layers cause I have hens and pullets in the same mix. I try to compensate by adding calcium, vitamins and proteins for them. Its summer so I guess they get something by free ranging too. As I said my bantams get the same diet and no problems with their chicks so that is what got me wonder. Maybe as you said, you see many things after years of haching and this is my first year so I am still to see those things. It's just that i love this roo and want to keep him but if someone will say that yes, roo may be a problam and they saw this in their practice, I'll have to think of something.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

How old is the rooster? There have been hatchability/fertility problems in some araucanas. You may just have to put up with low hatchability if you want to keep using those pairings.
I realize standards are different from country to country.
Apparently your nutrition is OK.
As for seeing strange things, I hatched a chick with three legs. I thought it was very unusual and I offered it to our vet school I have a relationship with as a teaching tool. They told me it wasn't that unusual.

 

[ronott1]

check and treat for parasites
Try not free ranging the breeder flock(Could be environmental--ie: lead in the soil)
Feed a high protein feed--shoot for 22%
Give them poultry vitamins like rooster booster

The above would help rule out flock health. If it does not help, get a different rooster

 

[Silvija]

Roo is no more than 2 years old, more like year and a half. Chick with three legs I am yet to see and hope I wil not

 

[ronott1]

The age is fine but bad genes can present at any age

 

[Silvija]

Thanks ronott1, I will see what I can do in my country about parasites. Led or other things because of free ranging I do not think so, it's a very clean place. We drink watter from a well couse it's very clean.

 

[ronott1]

Thanks ronott1, I will see what I can do in my country about parasites. Led or other things because of free ranging I do not think so, it's a very clean place. We drink watter from a well couse it's very clean.

Lead will not leach out too fare. A Member here had old paint flakes in the place the chickens free ranged. She had a blood test done and it detected lead. It was a surprise! Most told here her flock had Mareks.

 

[Silvija]

Well thats interesting. We are building a big chicken run anyway, I am pretty sure it's clean. At least previous owners of our new farm kept poultry in that place and horses before them. Never thought to worry about soil poisoning.