pardon_your_honor
In the Brooder
I've never had this happen before. I received a shipment of chicks from Ideal around July 2nd; only 23 out of 40 arrived. I kept them on watch since and had to hatched bantams in the bin with them. Most of the bin has failed to thrive after the first few days. Refusal to eat and lethargy being main symptoms. I've offered force feeding egg yolk, offering molasses water, even changed the brand of feed. Nothing is working and whatever it was my bantams caught it. But last night I realized that both the bantams were systematically losing the ability to walk before passing.
Now, some things to know.
1.The chicks are all unvaccinated, the bantams were hatched by me so I don't know how I would even do it myself and I bought the others unvaccinated because I was told unless your flock already had the disease there was no sense introducing it through the vaccine. Call stupid if you want but that's how I was shown to do it and this is the first time I've seen it.
2. I've been taking extra steps to protect my older birds. The young chicks are never raised with the older girls, hand-washing, chicken-run only shoes. But I am the only one in my family to do so religiously. My main concern is that I just got the other half of the Ideal Poultry order and it's been in the same room for about four days with my keets. As well as a third bin with my BCMs.
My question is what is the best move going forward? Do I cull the whole bin, do I cull my other chicks as well? Would it be safe to monitor the sick bin until there are no symptoms and let the survivors live on? Would they even be safe to introduce to my flock?
I know there are plenty of soft hearts out there but I need a real hard truth answer if there is one. I love all my birds too much to put them at risk for the sake of one bin so I'm looking for some experienced advice here.
Now, some things to know.
1.The chicks are all unvaccinated, the bantams were hatched by me so I don't know how I would even do it myself and I bought the others unvaccinated because I was told unless your flock already had the disease there was no sense introducing it through the vaccine. Call stupid if you want but that's how I was shown to do it and this is the first time I've seen it.
2. I've been taking extra steps to protect my older birds. The young chicks are never raised with the older girls, hand-washing, chicken-run only shoes. But I am the only one in my family to do so religiously. My main concern is that I just got the other half of the Ideal Poultry order and it's been in the same room for about four days with my keets. As well as a third bin with my BCMs.
My question is what is the best move going forward? Do I cull the whole bin, do I cull my other chicks as well? Would it be safe to monitor the sick bin until there are no symptoms and let the survivors live on? Would they even be safe to introduce to my flock?
I know there are plenty of soft hearts out there but I need a real hard truth answer if there is one. I love all my birds too much to put them at risk for the sake of one bin so I'm looking for some experienced advice here.