TMBear
In the Brooder
- Apr 3, 2015
- 11
- 0
- 22
Hi guys,
Yesterday I met my first major chick raising bump - 4 out of my 7 chicks died suddenly.
brooder setup: a biggish plastic storage box, "mama heating pad", medicated food, fresh water (changed daily), sand for bedding.
~5 days old chicks, everything went very smoothly from day 1 (or 0?) - they mostly slept through the first day then started to eat, drink, poop, peck and do other chick business. I also used an incandescent lamp for heating, but since some of the chick preferred "mama heating", I switched it off after a couple of days. Everything went well until yesterday night when I cleaned the sand, changed the water. All of the chicks but one went inside their housing afterwards (they always go inside when I switch off the light), one stayed chirping rather loudly. I didn't pay much attention since they occasionally become pretty vocal when disturbed. Later I noticed the loud chirping is still going on which is not normal and found one chick outside the mama lying, chirping, panting and looking pretty bad. There was also one dead chick inside and two more in the similar bad condition. I pulled them out, turned on the heat lamp, tried to give them water (depending on their state they drank), but nothing helped. Shortly they started to have a kind of seizures and died a few minutes after.
I was (and still am) afraid for the remaining 3, but this morning they looked fine. Initially I thought something went wrong with the mama and they got overheated, but the first one showed signs of disturbance outside it. The tote doesn't have a lid on top of it, and the temperature inside feels just like the ambient room one - I think around 70F. The mama pad is considerably warmer, especially if you push yourself up to the heating pad - that's what the chicks do inside. The chicks are free to and do go in and out on their will and it was ok for the first 5 days, so now I'm not inclined they overheated.
They did have a new outside contact earlier that day - my chicken-keeping neighbor who gave us the eggs dropped in for a visit, but no physical contact.
Any ideas how understand and what to lean from this situation is greatly appreciated. The most disturbing fact is that it happened extremely fast and there were absolutely no symptoms (or I simply didn't see them).
Since it's my first ever experience with chicken, me and my daughter got emotionally attached to them, nevertheless I don't want to give up. The next batch is already in the incubator, and I'm sure there going to be more.
Mike.
Yesterday I met my first major chick raising bump - 4 out of my 7 chicks died suddenly.
brooder setup: a biggish plastic storage box, "mama heating pad", medicated food, fresh water (changed daily), sand for bedding.
~5 days old chicks, everything went very smoothly from day 1 (or 0?) - they mostly slept through the first day then started to eat, drink, poop, peck and do other chick business. I also used an incandescent lamp for heating, but since some of the chick preferred "mama heating", I switched it off after a couple of days. Everything went well until yesterday night when I cleaned the sand, changed the water. All of the chicks but one went inside their housing afterwards (they always go inside when I switch off the light), one stayed chirping rather loudly. I didn't pay much attention since they occasionally become pretty vocal when disturbed. Later I noticed the loud chirping is still going on which is not normal and found one chick outside the mama lying, chirping, panting and looking pretty bad. There was also one dead chick inside and two more in the similar bad condition. I pulled them out, turned on the heat lamp, tried to give them water (depending on their state they drank), but nothing helped. Shortly they started to have a kind of seizures and died a few minutes after.
I was (and still am) afraid for the remaining 3, but this morning they looked fine. Initially I thought something went wrong with the mama and they got overheated, but the first one showed signs of disturbance outside it. The tote doesn't have a lid on top of it, and the temperature inside feels just like the ambient room one - I think around 70F. The mama pad is considerably warmer, especially if you push yourself up to the heating pad - that's what the chicks do inside. The chicks are free to and do go in and out on their will and it was ok for the first 5 days, so now I'm not inclined they overheated.
They did have a new outside contact earlier that day - my chicken-keeping neighbor who gave us the eggs dropped in for a visit, but no physical contact.
Any ideas how understand and what to lean from this situation is greatly appreciated. The most disturbing fact is that it happened extremely fast and there were absolutely no symptoms (or I simply didn't see them).
Since it's my first ever experience with chicken, me and my daughter got emotionally attached to them, nevertheless I don't want to give up. The next batch is already in the incubator, and I'm sure there going to be more.
Mike.
