Chicks Died After Hatching -- What Happened?

[bobbi-j]

For some reason, I'm leaning toward something environmental. What was the concentration of bleach water you used to clean it with? Did you let it dry thoroughly? Any air freshener used in the room they were incubated in?

Or it could be genetic. Were all the eggs out of the same rooster and hen? Adult hen or pullet? I would think for it to be nutritional, they'd have to be severely deficient somewhere. There are chickens who spend all summer eating nothing but grass and bugs that have no problems hatching a clutch of eggs with 100% survival of the chicks.

 

[TexasToucan]

The bleach was probably 50:50 but I rinsed well after sterilizing. It did get dried out before using. No air freshener and the incubator was kept in an air conditioned room. I have just one rooster who is a little over a year old and who is not related to any of the hens. All the hens are at least a year old, but none older than three or four.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I recommend getting a fecal float at the vet ($15 for me) to see if you even need to worm. Since I haven't used any wormers in 6 years, I am unfamiliar if the one you are using treat all kinds of worm and it would stink to treat for what you don't have or alternatively not treat for what you do.

Here is a number of links. Best I can figure is maybe ecoli type infection, and I definitely don't want to sound like a broken record but many do mention nutrition of parent stock. Which could be effected if you did have worms.

What I wonder is IF lets say the bleach didn't air out enough ( I always let bleach dry completely), seems like the air the eggs were using would have effected them before hatch as well? Peas may be a nice addition if you do wish to up your protein, I'm not sure of the fat content of sunflower seed, and are those BOSS that you got? I'm talking about dried field peas or split peas not from the freezer, although if it's summer time frozen peas are yummy to the girls. And I seriously don't mean to harp.. any "adult" feed is usually some type of layer. There are flock raiser or all flock with 18-20% as well as feather fixer. And you can feed ANY unmedicated starter with 18-22%, OS on the side for the girls. Also, I'm not saying that's what I think it is.. just sharing one possibility.

I would expect to wait the 10 days after worming as I would be thinking drugs do effect eggs if it's not safe to eat, seems like it *could* cause issues.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/mushy-chick-disease-yolk-sack-infection-omphalitis.64686/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/some-causes-of-early-chick-mortality.39604/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6730331

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...cale-Poultry-Farms-in-Jos-Central-Nigeria.pdf

I also would want to get a successful hatch before buying eggs. I hope your next round goes much better! Thank you for sharing this learning opportunity.

 

[TexasToucan]

Is the flock raiser O.K. to feed adult birds? I know when I have broody hens raising chicks, she always eats the medicated chick starter without problems. I did add the black oil sunflower seeds, which the birds love.

I think at this point, my plan is to first worm the flock, wait the ten days to collect eggs. While I am waiting, I will try to up their protein levels and give the sunflower seeds as a treat in the shavings. Also, I purchased the disinfectant from Brinsea. Currently, my incubator parts are sitting in the sun to hopefully bake off any residual bleach, and once I get the disinfectant I will use that, letting them redry out again in the sun. I think I am going to try to go with an adapted dry incubating approach, since it is a fairly humid environment here, keeping the humidity levels between 30-40%, then raising it at hatch time. This time out, I know more about watching the air cell size, and I won't feel married to the 45-50% levels recommended in the books. I did learn a lot from this experience, and I did get to watch a couple of the chicks hatch out before they died, which was pretty cool. Kind of amazing how much watching them hatch out makes you bond to them almost like you gave birth. Very different than when a hen raises them.

I do want to thank everyone who came onto this thread to give me suggestions. You all have been very helpful and supportive.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Yes flock raiser is made to meet the need of every age in the flock AS LONG AS you provide OS on the side for those that are laying, including other species like ducks. The hen that ate medicated chick feed was raising chicks not laying eggs for eating or hatching, so I don't know how it would effect the eggs specifically. If given access, I bet ALL the hens would eat the chick feed! My first flock got layer as that's what they were. This flock get the flock raiser because I almost always have chicks, growing pullets/cockerels, roosters, hatching eggs, and molting hens. My Broody's and chicks are in the coop with the flock and keeping separate feeds just won't work FOR ME. As well any chicks I raise indoors are fully integrated by the time they are 6-8 weeks old. I have way less experience than many on here who have plenty of success just feeding layer to ALL their ages (even chicks). For me I know too much to subject my birds to that. I'm not at all saying my way is the right way! I will say that I haven't had any illness or nutritional issues. (I'm sure your birds are healthy to) And my ignorant hatching technique has still given me good hatches. Most recently got 9 out of 13. The other 4, 1 died during hatch and 3 were infertile or seemed clear. Hard to candle Marans and I didn't want to bust them open. Oldest bird is 4 and still laying well, though there is often extra calcium on her shell surface. I have lost 3 total in 6 years (all the past couple months). 2 chicks to predators (1 was a flock member because the chick was dead in the coop) and 1 girl I broke from broody suffered egg binding when she came back into lay. When coming back into lay this year 3 other hens that average 60-65 gram eggs, put out eggs at 88, 92, and 104 grams! And the one that passed was my first experience with egg binding so I acted too slowly, and stupid regarding the vent check and violating her, if I could have even helped her. That was just one week before I had another girl acting funny so we epsom bathed her, lubed her and stuck her back in her box where she appeared to be trying to lay. But after a few days with her condition not deteriorating (and I didn't feel an egg up to my first knuckle I don't know if that's deep enough. ), we decided to check if she was broody which wasn't suspected because she was the opposite of psycho.. My other Marans hen went the opposite of Psycho when she went broody to! Huh?! So 2 of my Marans hens became WAY more subdued as broody's. These girls are not docile AT ALL normally. So with the different symptom and the recent loss of another hen I guess we were a little jumpy... Took her out to the middle of the yard (about day 3-4 since weird behavior) and tears of joy (plus some Jesus thanking) when she stayed, squealed, and started clucking before heading back to her box! Then later that night 2 chicks who mama booted at about 4 weeks and went to roost had crawled into Jenny's box and snuggled up to her! She won't let them back in now, but it was sooo precious. I have broody's coming out my ears practically! These Marans hens are throwing me for a loop.

Humidity is definitely something to play with. First hatch I ran at 45% upping to 75% at the end, told my SFH may drown because they NEED lower humidity. Second hatch was Marans eggs, told they need much lower humidity to make up for the extra pigment slowing evaporation... ran at 10% completely dry. The humidity in my house runs NOT lower than 65% and usually higher (PNW on the coast, sometimes the fog is so heavy even though they don't call it rain it's definitely precipitation of some sort at 99-100%) . But regardless of my exterior humidity, as far as I know... seems like you might have to adjust how much water is used to achieve a certain humidity but not necessarily change the target humidity inside the incubator.

It is possible from those links I saw, for too much evaporation to take place causing actual fluid loss from the embryo itself and dehydration. With many nutrients being water soluble may have made absorption too slow. Again just brain storming still.

Your plan sounds pretty good going forward. Do you now if that wormer kills all species or only some?

I can only imagine you disappointment. It's true that seeing them hatch is very special! Our first hatch was any average day to other people that didn't know the kind of joy and celebration of life we were having in our quiet little house/neighborhood. But to us a beautiful sight to behold! Happiness is fleeting but joy last forever.

One last word about feed.. they do also make unmedicated starter which is safe for all flock members to eat with OS on the side. And if you wanted you could mix 2 feeds to come up with the protein level you are comfortable with. The medicated part is *usually* Amprolium, the same ingredient in Corid which is used to slow the growth of coccidia which causes coccidiosis, is in every single chicken poo and thrives in warm humid conditions similar to that of a brooder. It only becomes an issue when they bloom out of control. If your brooder is dry enough without overcrowding, you may not need the medicated kind. I used it with my first chicks since that's what they told me to do at the feed store. Since then I have never used medicated starter. The first year in this house one set of my chicks caught cocci shortly after taking them to pasture during the nice wet spring (also it was my first LARGE brood shaving were wetter underneath than they looked on top... 10 put out way more matter than 3). After that, I have the Corid on had but haven't had to treat. I definitely should look into seeing if it does effect eating or hatching eggs in case I need to know for future purposes as usually when treating something like that, it's the whole flock unless they aren't yet integrated.

Sorry if I repeated myself.. sometimes it's hard to remember if thought it or said it and which thread it was. And I also learned many more things. Thank you for sharing.

 

[kiwivines]

This is my first experience trying to hatch out my own eggs. It has been a steep learning curve!

On day 20, two eggs pipped, one on the small end of the egg. The one that was improperly positioned had a fairly good size hole made, so I decided not to open the bator to do anything with it. The second egg just rested until last night. I got up to check on the eggs in the middle of the night, and the second one was completely out of the egg. By this time, I wasn't seeing any more movement out of the first egg. I didn't feel like I should open the incubator to remove it, as now another egg had pipped. When I got up again in the morning, the chick that had already hatched out was dead, and the other chick had hatched out. Not long after that, the second chick that had hatched out died. Seeing no other pips in the remaining eggs, I opened up the lid and removed both dead chicks, the unhatched dead one, and the egg shells. Any idea what caused the chicks to die? My best guess is bacterial infection from the first dead chick that never hatched out. The chicks that did get out of their shells looked fully formed and no yolk or blood on them. They died before they even dried off.

Any thoughts on what went wrong, and how to avoid it in the future? I don't hold out any hope for the remaining eggs still in the incubator, but I will wait a couple of days to be sure (it is just now day 21).

I have the same type of the incubator, and encountered exactly the same problem with yours. Two hatched chicks all died and another two did not pip up. I thought the problem of mine could be due to the temperature. Somehow, the temperature of incubator setting was 38oC, but inside only reached 35.5oC. but I did not dare to set higher temperature (the maximum T of the incubator is 40oC). It did take longer time to hatch. Also, I found the dead chicks seemed to have troubles to get their poop out. I feel very disheartened, and do not know if I should give another try (I was trying to hatch cream legbar eggs, which have to purchase from ebay).