Cornish X suddenly dying at 3 weeks old - HELP!!!

[JoyfulPromise]

Thank you for the suggestions Elke Beck! I have been researching and it looks like the main Ag/Poultry research center is in Michigan State University in Lansing, which is several hours away. They did however have an online option to "Ask an Expert" where you can get get answers from various experts at universities across America. I posted a question about our situation and someone responded and asked me to give him a call tomorrow morning. He also said to save one or two of the dead chickens in the refrigerator, possibly so we can dissect them while he tells us what to look for? Anyway, I will let you know what we find out tomorrow morning. I hope we get some sort of answer! We lost two more this afternoon.

Fuzziecreatures - I appreciate you trying to think of something that might be the cause! Any suggestions/ideas are welcome! Unfortunately, we have NOT changed any of the brooder bulbs since we got the chicks 3 weeks ago.

I put crushed garlic in their water this afternoon, and some powdered garlic and a few drops of Oregano oil in their food. Some of the chicks on that side ate the food, so hopefully it will do them some good! Unfortunately a good number did not seem very interested in the food - that seems to be another symptom of this virus or whatever it is.

 

[Chick Charm]

Could it possibly be Cocci? By any chance have you seen any blood on that side?

I believe contacting MSU is a smart thing to do. If the dying stops here, it would still be at the high end of mortality "in my book.'' But in all likely-hood at this rate there will be more. Shelter, feed, water and heat are all taken care of so, I would conclude something related to disease.

I am getting ready to do a batch of 25 myself. I feel for ya in the financial loss column. Keep doing your best.

 

[pfoster]

Update? have you found a cause yet?

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Well, we never found a definitive cause. We spoke to two "experts" at MSU - one the top poultry specialist, and the other a disease specialist. They were not very helpful, other than perhaps getting us to re-examine what we had done this time more closely to see if there was anything different. They did not understand why were were using soy-free feed or the value of fermenting the feed. The disease specialist did say from our descriptions that he did NOT think it was an infectious disease. He suggested a possible problem where they out-grow their metabolism and have low blood sugar, so he said to try giving the sick looking ones sugar water. We did try this, but it really didn't seem to help.

So, after much thinking and trying to figure out what we had done different this time, we decided that we HAD been a little bit lax on putting ACV in their water lately, and maybe hadn't given them grit as much as we should have, seeing that their feed is mostly cracked and coarse ground grains. We immediately corrected that problem, and also continued putting granulated garlic in their feed along with a couple of drops of oregano. SLOWLY, this seemed to help. The deaths slowed to one, or two here and there, and we actually had a full day without one death on Sunday, and the rest of the chickens were perking up and eating better. We could still pick out a few that looked poorly, but they were getting less and less.

Today, we moved the remaining 89 chickens out to two hoop houses in our back meadow. Four of them we kept up in the garage, because they seemed to have a new problem - constipation! We have been dosing them with small amounts of yogurt to try and rectify that ailment.

So that is the update for now. I wish it were more definitive! Now we plan to totally clean out the brooder boxes and put fresh bedding in preparation for a new batch of 100 Cornish X chicks coming in a week from today! We plan to try and be very consistent with the ACV and grit this time and pray we won't have any more problems like this!!

Thank you for everyone's input and interest! I will let you know if anything else happens.

 

[Chick Charm]

Well good to hear that it was not disease. That is what my main guess was actually. My last few batches have been raised almost entirely outdoors with the ability to get grit from the ground. So something learned for me here. Loosing 17 birds is a big deal. Hope everything else turns out well.

I give my baby chicks sugar water but that usually stops in the first week for me. I hadn't hear or thought of their metabolism outgrowing their bodies. I may even try some sugar water later on just for monitoring any changes sake.

 

[stevodod]

Update? They need to be monitored quite a bit, and can get pasty butts easily. They tend to get lazy and lay around, and will poop in their water a lot. Cut off feed at night. I always wash off dirty ones in a dawn/warm water mixture. Feces attached to the feet? More cleaning.

What is your substrate? Do you have a temp gun? Are the birds panting? Do they get water overnight? I've had them get sour crop, an cured it with a good massage and vegetable oil down the throat. Making sick ones drink has helped me.