Chicks dying rapidly

Quailmandan

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Hey guys, I am Daniel. I raise Bobwhite Quail in Chapin SC. I am starting a business to sell flight ready birds to local hunters. I am involved in the FFA, and recently, in one of our agriculture/ffa classes, we built 2 large brooders (8 by 4 foot). Recently we had 86 chicks out of 100 eggs hatch, and we put them into one of our georgia quail farm brooders. Then when we finished the 2 big large wood brooders, we put them in there. The quail are around 4-6 days old. Every since I have put them in the big wooden brooder, I have had about 8-9 quail die in a matter of 2 DAYS!! 4 died as of last night. I made the decision this morning to move them back to the metal GFQ brooder, until we could figure out if something was wrong with the wooden brooder. So, I checked the temperature of the wood brooder again, and it was well within the range of temperature, at around 89-92. We try and decrease temperature 5 degrees every week. Anyways, there food, water, etc was perfect, even the heatlamp correctly placed on one side of the brooder, so one side has heat, and one side has a place for them to cool down. I noticed that the brooder still had a lot of sawdust on it from us cutting wood, since it literally was finished about 4 days ago. I looked up that there is a toxin in sawdust, called tarrin, in which can kill chicks. i was wondering what you guys think. Also we were using Cedar savings as bedding. Do I need to use aspen bedding instead. Maybe do you guys think that i should vacuum thoroughly.
 
Pine shavings or straw. You are not supposed to use cedar shaving for birds. I would try to clean up that saw dust to be safe. Post pictures of your brooder.
 
Cedar is bad for chicken chicks. Go with pine shavings or something else.

What kind of wood was used for the brooder?
Pressure treated?
That stuff is poisonous. Especially when it’s fresh.
It was pine, (we have a sawmill at school)
What do you mean by pressure treated (Im 15, so just wondering)
And also I was thinking the same thing on the tarrin. It is very fresh.
 
this is the best picture I have of it
F6BE21B9-39D9-4793-8D4F-80B0AC76B22B.png
 
Another possibility is so many chicks piled together in there. Did you say 80?

They get together in a cuddle puddle when they get chilly and the ones on the bottom may simply be smothering.
Yes they pile together, but they have always done that when I raised them. It is plenty warm, and the brooder was made to hold about 250 chicks, and we only had 80 in there, so plenty of room.
 
this is the best picture I have of itView attachment 1409113
I think that is the same wood used for roofing. I think we used it to roof our coop. It apears as though they you have plenty of ventalation on your brooder with the top being open. Is there any thing in your garage that could be harmful? Such as insecticides or other chemicals?
 

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