Help Dying Chicks!!!!

[Big Dan]

My wife and I are raising meat chickens for the school district now. We have raised Cornish x for personal but now we raise for the school district. so we have lost a couple Cornish when we raised personal. I just started my new venture. We have two houndred Cornish and we have lost about two a day. All the other ones good food a huddling. temp is between 90 and 95. We use shavings and 20% chick starter. They are in a 12' x 12' brooder box I have it divided in half for the first week. There is constantly feed in the box. There is a 5 gallon waterer that we change the water in everyday. Why are we losing chicks like that. Is that normal or what am I doing wrong? They are now 5 days old. Please help I don't want too lose all of them!

 

[Big Dan]

I forgot to mention I raise a lot of turkeys for my town and don't have deaths like that in my poults. I raise bourbon reds and broad breasted bronze

 

[Big Dan]

Does anybody have any ideas on what I am missing with these guys?

 

[BCMaraniac]

My wife and I are raising meat chickens for the school district now. We have raised Cornish x for personal but now we raise for the school district. so we have lost a couple Cornish when we raised personal. I just started my new venture. We have two houndred Cornish and we have lost about two a day. All the other ones good food a huddling. temp is between 90 and 95. We use shavings and 20% chick starter. They are in a 12' x 12' brooder box I have it divided in half for the first week. There is constantly feed in the box. There is a 5 gallon waterer that we change the water in everyday. Why are we losing chicks like that. Is that normal or what am I doing wrong? They are now 5 days old. Please help I don't want too lose all of them!

I was under rhe impression that a 5-10% loss was not uncommon with the CX chicks....but there are others who would know more about that than I do.

If that is correct, the normal loss for 200 chicks would be 10-20. We raised 20 earlier this year, and had no losses, but we didn't get the chicks until they were 5 days old from TSC, so losses had probably occurred at the store.

I hope you have no further losses. Make sure you use unfiltered ACV in their water to prevent pasty butt....can't imagine trying to stay ahead of that with 200 chicks.

 

[Big Dan]

Yes we use adv unfiltered in all our animals waterers. we are checking on them hourly to make sure they are doing OK. Everybody looks really healthy... Except dead ones. Ha. Should they be dying like that though. Isn't tjhe mortality rate for the life of the birds not just first few days. They are now a week old and I've lost 10 total. I've never had that with any of my turkeys. Thank you for the response. It just makes me nervous!

 

[BCMaraniac]

Yes we use adv unfiltered in all our animals waterers. we are checking on them hourly to make sure they are doing OK. Everybody looks really healthy... Except dead ones. Ha. Should they be dying like that though. Isn't tjhe mortality rate for the life of the birds not just first few days. They are now a week old and I've lost 10 total. I've never had that with any of my turkeys. Thank you for the response. It just makes me nervous!

I was reading an article comparing CX to heritage breeds for meat, and it mentioned that folks raising CX should plan on a 15% mortality before slaughter:

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/2010/04/selecting-meat-chickens.html

One other thing that I noticed about my CX is that they seem to not need as much heat as some other chicks. Do yours seem to be avoiding the lights?

 

[Big Dan]

Off and on. There seems to be a constant huddle of at least 40% of the chicks but temps are always fine. I also noticed the dead birds always seem to be around the huddle. Thanks for the link I'm heading there now

 

[BCMaraniac]

Off and on. There seems to be a constant huddle of at least 40% of the chicks but temps are always fine. I also noticed the dead birds always seem to be around the huddle. Thanks for the link I'm heading there now

You mentioned that 40% of the birds are huddling under the lights....how many lights do you have per brooder? Is it possible that the areas outside the hot spot of the heat lamp is too cool? My brooder is 4x4 and I have two lights...one is 250 watts, and the other is 125 watts. I like for them to be able to get under the lamp if they are cold, but still have room to be out from under the lights. If they are really piled in on top of each other under the lights, they could just be getting cold. The reverse would be true if they are trying to get as far away from the lights, then they are too hot. There is this happy medium, and it is difficult to attain when the temperatures are really warm during the day, followed by cold nights.

 

[Big Dan]

And see that what my thoughts were to, but the temp in there is 90 to 95 degrees and farthest away from the lamp is 85. I have a 12'x12' brooder box that is equipped with 6 heat lamp. 3 250 watt and 3 125 watt. They are arranged in a way that it keeps an even temp around but the back 3'x 12' is not under a lamp but still maintains warmth so they can get away. I have raised a ton of poultry and we always start them as chicks. I have never had deaths like that before. i know all the temp signs that they show I even use a in fared laser thermometer to make sure the birds have a good ambient temp of 105. The birds all have plenty of water and feed space. I also have a temp regulator that will open vent ports on either side if the temp gets over 95 and close when temp drops down. Completely water tight as well. I have been doing a lot of research on these Cornish x and I wonder if they were just the chicks that were bound to not make it anyways. I haven't lost anymore the past 2 days. I read on a link bcmaraniac that said a low average of lost birds is 15% before butcher and can be up to 30%. So I should expect to lose about 30 with my 200 chicks. They are all very happy and healthy now and running around. I checked all of them and they seem to be fine now. I hope it was just normal because I am stumped other than that. All the chicks we have raised we rarely ever lose one chick, but then again we have never ran Cornish x through our lot. If anybody else has any guesses please let me know. Thanks for all the input.

 

[Big Dan]

I also spoke with a large Cornish facility a couple towns away and they said that when they have a couple hundred chicks together that they always huddle up. Its when they are stacked 3 high it causes a problem. He said its just a comfort thing for them.