dying 7 week olds! Why? Help!

[mydaughterloveschickens]

I had 12 beautiful healthy aracauna chicks. Today two have suddenly just died! What do I do?

 

[threehorses]

To help you, we'll need more information.

What are you feeding them currently? How are they caged? Wire floor, dirt floor, caged, raise by mom, brooder (including brooder temps), etc. Are you giving them anything in their water? (Clean regular water is fine btw, but if you're adding something we'd need to know).

Most importantly - how are they acting? Are they busy and energetic and curious, quiet, do they peep a lot? What's their dropping like? Solid with urates? Less solid without urates? Brown, green, orange, muscousy, yellow? A lot, or a little? Do they ever poop in their water? (Lord knows mine do, the little sneakers - i think they do it on purpose to make more work for me.)

Let's start with these questions and see if we can't get you some good help.

Thanks for answering them all - each one was chosen for a specific reason.

 

[threehorses]

Incidentally, how feathered are they at th em oment, and what's the quality of their first feather batch?

Being brutally honest with us here will not get you judgement. If you're having feather issues, it might indicate something with which we can help you. If I were judged for all the things I could have done better, or heck COULD do better now, then I'd just have to give up chickens. We all would - even the pros.

We just want to help; it's obvious that you're distressed, and I would be, too. I've always gotten a broken heart when I lost babies.

 

[mydaughterloveschickens]

they are acting normal. very energetic and chirpy. They were hatchery babies, and are eating medicated starter. I keep their water very clean. I checked their eyes(perfect) No pastey bottoms. I did just find a drop of blood in some droppings. I have moved the others to another coop. They were in our starter coop(that is our smaller outside coop for chicks ready for the outside) but is plenty big.

 

[threehorses]

Well it all sounds good. You have really two courses of action at this point.

Since the others are all acting well, you could boost their internal gut health with probiotics. At this point, all droppings being good and the babies moved, you might not have any other issues. Probiotics simply help build up the good gut bacteria which, by enzymatic action as well as crowding out, help prevent bad bacteria from blooming and protazoa from having as great an effect. Coccidiosis is usually the culprit in babies where you see a spot of blood int he droppings, or even just mucus droppings that are less brown and more heading towards rust colored. It doesn't take blood for there to be coccidiosis - that's a common misconception.

I'd think since the babies are healthy and the premises clean and they're on medicated feed, I'd take this route. I often have successfully if I saw any signs of coccidiosis. (My babies are usually feedstore babies who don't have a really clean start unfortunately. My home-grown babies never have issues.)

The other alternative is to go ahead and treat them for coccidiosis. If you do this, Corid or Sulmet are the way to go. You'll find dosages for them here, or on the bottle. In this case as well, please do probiotic treatment.

For probiotics, if I had my way, I'd use the ones from the feedstore: probios or fastrack are two examples of easily used good probiotics. However sometimes I just don't have them handy. Other alternatives are acidophilus capsules from the grocer/pharmacy/health food store. The ones designed for women for yeast infections are the best because of the combination of bacteria used. You can also use plain yogurt from the grocery store. It's about a teaspoon per adult bird, one teaspoon per about eight to ten chicks, and you can figure out where in between you are. It's not a medicine, so it's not going to hurt them to have a non-exact amount. Obviously even though most of the lactose in yogurt has already been processed out by bacteria, there's still some left so we don't want to have them eat loads and loads.

Moderation is key.

I mix yogurt with crumbles, an egg yolk, and water til it's crumbly and moist. I have few refusals of it.

If you used capsules, just break one on top of about a fourth cup of food. If you use probiotics or fastrack, I just sprinkle it on top - like you'd sprinkle sugar on strawberries.

Just watch that poop. If they're raised up, put papertowels underneath to see the color of the droppings.

Or newspaper or something. You don't HAVE to, but it's a nice tip that helps sometimes.

Oh yeah - and make sure your babies aren't perching on their feeder and pooping in it. (I think this year's babies do all the wrong things like this heheh.) They'll just eat it and you won't know they're doing it, silly things.

I really think you won't have problems now, especially if you just give them probiotics and watch them for any mushy droppings. Especially at this age. They should have pretty nice little firm droppings now with urates obvious on them.

Hope this helps! I'm jealous of your araucanas. I got a mixed batch of bantams this year because my boyfriend is just learning about chickens and it's kind of fun to get a mixed batch and figure out what he likes.

Let us know how they do, please?

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

May I add to Nathalies solution this

give 1-2 tbsp of ACV in a gallon of water if they are on unmedicated waterers

this can help the gut flora and digest the Vit D and calcium that their body needs for good health

please email me if more questions

what did the dead chicks look like?
did they have moisture or blood in the vent area?
did they have blood at the beak area?
Did they go with out water for any length of time?

something caused this
so it will need your very constant observing the rest of the chicks

FOR COCCIDIOSIS
they will get ruffled, humpted up, shaking, shivering, and drinking only and then have blood in feces and then die

THIS ONLY TAKES 4 DAYS and they will die

so notice all birds early in morning as that is when you will see the problems

do try and get corid to have on hand as it is amproylium

even if the chicks are on medicated feed
some feeds have terramycin medication in them and not amproylium

so what doe your feed have in it?
How old are these chicks?
are they on soil at all?
because they will have to be on soil to get the coccidiosis germs
unless the coop they are in once had coccidiosis and not disinfected

that is why one needs to disinfect sheds with Oxine or 2-10 clorox strenth in water when cleaning it

I would wash my shoes daily in clorox put in a tray and step into the clorox
wash your hands good
carry a bottle of the hand sanitizer to each chicken house and wash hands before feeding and watering chickens

also don't wear clothes that have been where sick birds are

ALWAYS DO THE SICK BIRDS CHORES LAST

email me for any questions

 

[nnbreeder]

And if they do have Cocci. feed no treats of any kind the Cocci feeds on protien and if the protien level in the feed goes up the cocci will get worse.

A hen raised chick will rarely have cocci as they vaccinate themselves. If you notice they will each in turn take a peck at mom's droppings, building immunity to what she sheds off.

 

[mydaughterloveschickens]

Thanks for all the good advice. My daughter has been raising cochins for years and we've never had any problems. But this was our first hatchery batch. I bought her state fair cochin winners one summer and they have beautiful and perfectly healthy babies each year.
We spend hours with our chicks and chickens. They never acted or looked odd at all. Eyes great, clear vents, excellent feathers, happy, chirpy and friendly. It was so wierd and scary. We gave them sulmet and the wonderful "chicken gatorade" in their water and so far we have had no more casualties. But Princess Laya and Miss Goldie will be missed.

 

[threehorses]

Yeah feedstore and hatchery chickens are more likely to do this, even than non-mom-raised home hatched babies. I suspect it's because of the stress of the shipping. But that's how alot of us get our babies. So usually with them, when they first get home, I'll use Ornabac (lactobacilllus by-products and vitamin B), and a probiotic like probios or maybe a tiny bit of yogurt in their second feeding - or their first if I do wetted crumbles as their first meal. It just gets things going in their gut as quickly as possible so that I don't have to worry about coccidiosis even in feedstore or hatchery babies.