Dying Chicks

[melroseladi]

Chickens can eat uncooked rice. Hens do not have to have laying pellets, especially if they are free-ranging. You should supplement their calcium with oyster shell, egg shells, etc. Chicks being raised by a free-ranging broody hen do not have to have chick starter. The hen will take them to food sources and teach them what to eat.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Perish the though, but have you considered

Pullorum Disease, A.K.A chicken typhoid?

Or Coccidiosis

Or Newcastle Disease

All of these diseases are bad news for chickens but especially for those chickens who are unvaccinated and/or exposed to wild birds.

See if any of these chickens look like the young chickens you lost.

 

[EEchickens]

no i give them cooked rice and water

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

no i give them cooked rice and water

I'm on the mobile website, so I can't see where you're from, but I'm guessing not the USA?
Your birds need more than just rice and water. If they free range they're getting alot from foraging (dependent on your location, weather, what's available, ect). They likely need MORE. Give them some meat scraps and some type of green veggies to help balance out their diet.
Nikki

 

[RWise]

this is a myth!

You can not toss at anymore as it attracts vermin like rats, mice and pigeons.

My chickens and doves have dry rice as treats, and also some mixed in with their food. They love it.

Also around my house are many rice fields and at harvest times there are hundreds of sparrows and finches eating the DRY rice that have been spilled.

If eating dry rice was going to kill birds, then most of Asia would have no seed eating birds left lol

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/birdrice.asp

This gem of knowledge was first discovered by the lovelorn advise columnist and ornithologists Ann Landers back in 1996. I suspect that since her column appeared on the comics page of my home town daily newspaper is now the reason that people say, "Don't believe everything that you read in the Funny Papers."

Rice alone will not kill a bird, especially not a chicken. The only possible exception may be those birds not designed to eat dry seeds like owls, hawks, eagles or other birds of prey but I suspect they eat a certian amount of seeds found in the prey that they eat.

Chickens do have a specialized organ on the right side of their breast called a crop or craw. The crop is the weigh station for everything that a chicken eats and believe me chickens eat everything. The craw is designed to hold food especially grains and other grass seeds while moisturizing or attaching these seeds with digestive juices. Next the previously dry food is passed on to the gizzard. The gizzard (a very tough and muscular organ) is a chickens teeth and its stomach all rolled into one. The gizzard uses muscular action along with the help of small pebbles and rocks to grind the sofened food before handing it off to a chickens' small intestine.

Chickens don't have a stomach in the same sense of the word that we humans do. You might say that a chicken first swallows its food, then it digests it, and then it chews it up.

Kind of what I have always suspected (not harmful to most birds), when the tickets\fines were given it was stated it was because of the birds eating the rice and dieing. I think I will continue to cook rice when I give it my girls, they like it that way.

 

[tuftygr]

I got my girls1 month ago. Fed them pellets, egg shells, leafy matter from my winter garden and any other veggie scraps from tfe supper table. Out of the 7 I just got, I'm getting 6 eggs daily. Good luck this year.

 

[EEchickens]

thankss

 

[roostersandhens]

hope your hens survive this time!
GOOD LUCK!

 

[EEchickens]

thank yo

 

[chrissyr]

First of all, whether the rice will kill them, I don't know. But I do know an all rice diet is not enough nutrition for anything. think of what your kids would be like if that's all they ate. also, Chicks are susceptible to Coccidiosis and that's why there is Medicated Chick starter. Coccidiosis is in the feces, and if they are confined to a pen, there is more of a likely chance they'll get it. Some don't give medicated, but at this point, you've got to change something. I agree with Ridgerunner, more details on age, what kind of housing and symptoms would be more helpful.
Give them chick food, if they start dying off from Coccidiosis, you will still need to give them Sulmet. Make sure they have shade in the heat, and even a cool, wet place to lay in. It could be a number of things, but I would start with the feed.
Do they have grit, or tiny pebbles? they will need this if you're giving them feeds that aren't commercial chicken feeds. And give grit, but not oyster shell at this age. They are 2 different products. You DONT want to give chicks oyster shell (which is calcium) until they lay.
Even if they free range, I would still provide the appropriate chicken feed and let them eat free choice. They probably won't eat much if they're free ranging, but at least if they need anything they have it there. It's one of those things if you do it right, you will have beautiful layers in no time.