Chicks sleeping a lot?

[acorley84]

I just got 3 pullet and 3 red pullet chicks this past weekend (it's now Wednesday) but one of the red pullets didn't make it through the night. I now have one of the pullets that's not growing as rapidly as the others (noticeable size difference!) and it sleeps A LOT and standing up. Even when you try to pick it up, it doesn't really fight you or chirp at you. I did try to dip its beak in the water bin to get it to take a few sips, but does this chick have an unquestionable future, too? I feel really bad and will do whatever I can to help it along, but I'm a chick newbie, so I'm not quite sure if this one is maybe a little younger than the rest or if it's not fairing so well...so any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also, it appears the last time it poo'd it couldn't get it all out! I tried to clean it up but some of it dried on there! I seriously need advice and quick!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Check your overall set-up to make sure it isn't environmental. Clean water (you can add a bit of sugar to pep them up), proper bedding (not cedar shavings), ideal temperature (not too hot nor too cold), fresh chick feed. Look up Pasty Butt and see how to treat & prevent it, many chicks have to deal with that. You can add a little pan of dirt for them to scratch in and that adds grit to their crops.

Where did you get these chicks? I hope the rest of them grow well for you!

 

[acorley84]

Well Ella passed on last night so out of my 6 chicks, we've got 4 left! We got them from Tractor Supply. The four remaining seem quite healthy and are getting quite ornery so I think that we just got 2 sick ones out of the bunch!

They said that we have 2 pullets and 2 red pullets...what does that mean? I don't know anything about chickens, I just know that I came home from a 4 day Conference to them!

The environment seems good for the remaining 4 and I cleaned the bum of the other one according to directions I found online, and I tried the sugar water, but it just went from standing sleeping all the time to laying down and the other chicks were pecking at it and trampling all over it but it wouldn't budge unless they knocked it over so after yesterday I figured it was inevitable and sure enough when we woke up this morning, the poor thing had passed.

How do I tell if I have hens or roosters and what type of chicken I have?

 

[DelcoChix]

Sorry to hear of your loss--sounds like you're doing what you should be doing right now.
The TSC near me also advertised "red pullets." Kind of ambiguous in my opinion--the sign said the chicks would be one of the following breds and then listed out a bunch of red chicken breeds, such as Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, Red Star, etc, so bottom line, you 'should' be getting some bird that will end up being reddish/brown and lay brown eggs. Pullet simply means it is supposed to be female, was sexed (checked for gender) at the hatchery--a pullet is a young female under that age of one and not yet laying eggs, a hen is over one year old.
Hopefully, you have four females that should be red!

 

[acorley84]

Well I have 2 red ones left and 2 yellow/whitish ones! Tell me, is it normal for them to get themselves wet? This happened and they all ended up drenched the other day and that was right before the 2nd one died. But one did it again today! It scared me because I don't want to lose another one!! I turned the heat up and tried to keep it under the light until it dried but they are ornery and trying every way they can to get out of their little roost we made for them!

 

[Brandi Leigh]

When I got my first patch of chicks, every time i would peek into the brooder I thought they were all dead! It was like they slept where they dropped. And they only time they weren't sleeping they were eating or pooping.

 

[acorley84]

These have figured out how to jump to the top of their brooder box and now they're poopin on my floor! They are so ornery!

 

[Jerome 123]

Nice.

 

[VtotheAL]

When I woke up this morning, one of my chicks is super sleepy. She will barely peek at me, if I pet her, before going back to sleep. She wakes up if I pick her up, but will snuggle in and go back to sleep. I can't even entice her with a live meal worm, which she and her sister go crazy for usually. The other chick is up, scratching around, and fine. Could being too cold cause her to sleep like that? It's not too hot in their brooder. Thx!

 

[alohachicken]

hes the black thing he has been like this all day