This is our third time buying and raising baby chicks, and the second time we've purchased from McMurray hatchery. This year we bought 10 White Orpington roosters, 10 Light Brahma roosters, 10 Delaware roosters, 1 Ameracauana hen, 1 Brown Leghorn hen. We also have 2 Black Copper Marans from a local breeder.
We received our order of birds from McMurray last Friday, and all the birds seemed healthy except one. One White Orp had splayed leg or a slipped tendon (couldn't determine which). We separated it and tried to treat it with band-aids and such, but it never figured it out and eventually died after a couple of days.
The next day, we discovered a White Orp dead for no apparent reason (no pasty-but, no signs of trauma, etc). We were noticing a lot more pasty butt than we had in the past, which led us to wonder about the feed (we're using Union Point's chick starter, feed specs attached as a pic -- more info about Union Point at unionpoint.com). We're trying to be quick to try and get rid of any pasty-butt as we find it, but aren't sure if that is somehow over-stressing the birds. On Sunday, we found one of the Light Brahmas that had had a bout of pasty-butt dead.
Yesterday, we noticed that two other birds -- a Light Brahma and a Delaware -- were lethargic, and this morning we found them dead, too. That brings our total dead birds to 5 out of an order of 32 from McMurray. We put some apple cider vinegar in the water as a probiotic, and we're going to add Chick Grit from Purina today and put some scrambled eggs in for added protein today, too.
We are not big Purina/commercial food fans, and are trying to work with a local producer that is well respected and has a quality product for feed, but we've never had a single bird die, and this year we've lost 5 in six days! Any thoughts folks have would be appreciated.
Other notes -- they are not on pine shavings, they're on pelleted bedding from Wilco. They've been kept under a red light at 90-100 degrees every day. They get clean water every day. They've got plenty of room in their 3' x 3' brooder box. They were not vaccinated from McMurray (but we've never had our McMurray birds vaccinated and none have died).
We received our order of birds from McMurray last Friday, and all the birds seemed healthy except one. One White Orp had splayed leg or a slipped tendon (couldn't determine which). We separated it and tried to treat it with band-aids and such, but it never figured it out and eventually died after a couple of days.
The next day, we discovered a White Orp dead for no apparent reason (no pasty-but, no signs of trauma, etc). We were noticing a lot more pasty butt than we had in the past, which led us to wonder about the feed (we're using Union Point's chick starter, feed specs attached as a pic -- more info about Union Point at unionpoint.com). We're trying to be quick to try and get rid of any pasty-butt as we find it, but aren't sure if that is somehow over-stressing the birds. On Sunday, we found one of the Light Brahmas that had had a bout of pasty-butt dead.
Yesterday, we noticed that two other birds -- a Light Brahma and a Delaware -- were lethargic, and this morning we found them dead, too. That brings our total dead birds to 5 out of an order of 32 from McMurray. We put some apple cider vinegar in the water as a probiotic, and we're going to add Chick Grit from Purina today and put some scrambled eggs in for added protein today, too.
We are not big Purina/commercial food fans, and are trying to work with a local producer that is well respected and has a quality product for feed, but we've never had a single bird die, and this year we've lost 5 in six days! Any thoughts folks have would be appreciated.
Other notes -- they are not on pine shavings, they're on pelleted bedding from Wilco. They've been kept under a red light at 90-100 degrees every day. They get clean water every day. They've got plenty of room in their 3' x 3' brooder box. They were not vaccinated from McMurray (but we've never had our McMurray birds vaccinated and none have died).
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