Help my chicks of over a week old are dying !!!

[CountyGal]

I have broiler chicks almost two weeks old all healthy till this morning. We found them swaying and not eating or drinking. One is dead and three more look like they'll follow! This is our first batch of chicks. They are Cornish Cross chicks. They are fed non-med. broiler feed with 22% protein. We've been giving them a worm or ant here and there in the last week. They are inside but have good ventilation and on sunny days they get sunlight. They're water is cleaned out as often as needed and we've been giving them some crushed oyster shells as well. Any thoughts on what might be wrong??? Please help!!!

 

[Katy]

Quote:
What's their poo like? They don't need oyster shell....that's only for laying hens.

 

[allison finch]

Too much calcium is NOT good for babies. Take the oyster shells out. You can give them chick gravel, instead.

 

[CountyGal]

Some do have the runs. I was looking up possible problems and one possibility was Coccidiosis and Enteritis. The only difference is that they don't drink enough water. We did separate out the ones that look sick.

 

[Judy]

If you feel they may have cocci, which is certainly a possibility, I would get some Corid today and treat them. If they do, they are likely to die quickly from it.

 

[muell112]

Another thing - and this is just a suggestion in addition to whatever else you figure out with what's going on immediately - I don't know if they'd be overeating at this point but they will...I had my first batch of cornishXs this year and ended up just feeding this for a little while in the morning/evening and removing their food in the interim. They got huge even doing that.

 

[CountyGal]

What is Corid?

 

[CountyGal]

One is still sick. The other one some how got out of quarantine and now seems fine. We found out that (if it is Coccidiosis) to try giving them raw milk. They said that if given raw milk it will coat their stomach and help fight the infection. So with only one dead and one still sick we've been working hard to keep this one warm and every hour or so feed some raw milk. We are going to get a little Medicated feed just to make sure it doesn't spread. Thank you all for you help. If you have any other ideas or info please share them! Thanks!