Help. What is wrong with my chicks?

[BluebirdHomestead]

Alive is good. Poor babies. It is a long road to recover.

Most definitely. Crossing my fingers that all 4 greet me in the morning.

 

[Henanigan]

Just now caught up with this thread. I will be saying a special prayer for your 4 chickies. May God bless their little bodies with supernatural strength.

 

[aart]

My brooder looks pretty mouse proof yeah?

Except for the feed trough.
Is the brooder floor wire mesh or solid?

It's cool looking brooder but I still wonder how well those heaters work.
I would love to whip out my infrared temp gauge and measure:
the surface of the heaters,
the floor right underneath them,
the floor half way too and right next to the feed trough.
Sorry, my engineering tech mind kicking in.

 

[GodofPecking]

These chicks need to eat sheet or die. I've read pages 12 thru 22 and the first one or two or so, it's exhausting. Everything follows the same course though.

Have you fed POO to these chicks ?

Chicks REQUIRE the gut flora to process food and nutrition, and to develop an immune system. They eat their flocks poo to kick start their digestive tract. No Poo equals no health.

You have a perfect setup to prove this point really, as far as I can see it's all indoors, so wild birds cannot assist, everything is clean and they have no parent, is this correct ? because it explains the lot.

You're asking advice of people who have outdoorsy flocks and so they'd never have seen this problem. It would be rare.

I am conscious of this, basically I breed chooks so that they do not require antibiotics or vaccines and are healthier than those which do. I do incubate very successfully, and either put poo into the chicks water, just a few tasty nuggets gathered from each pen in the yard if you have other chooks, or just gather random bird poop if you have no chooks., otherwise I foster out the chicks to broody hens outdoors and they do the rest. Chicks are generally stronger and are good to go with this method if you get them early. Have no idea if you can save all of your remaining ones or not.

Also, You'll all be relieved (HAAHA pun) to know that this applies to humans, you can either believe me or just be wrong, it's not up for debate. you can go look it all up. People can fix a chronically upset bowel with a simple non surgical below the waist injection from some other donor. MORE interesting research suggests that .... wait a minute...

ARE YOU ALL ENJOYING THIS POST ????
it's such a loverly subject. eww.

so where was I ? oh yes, pants down at the doctors office, or home if you do it yourself, no, I was going on about research which shows that dull listless fatigue ridden, was it mice ? was it rats ? or who cares, thing is there are donor groups of mammals which are SPORTY and bushy-tailed and ones that are the opposite, and by applying gut flora from a different group you can effect the behavior of the patient. Yes, it has THAT much influence on the organism. Meh, anyhow, that's enough of a pointer and you can all go discuss it with a search engine. Do search for research papers of course. It's all a not often talked about subject. I CANT IMAGINE WHY.

 

[GodofPecking]

Oh yes, I am not giving you medical advice by the way, there are other things that can effect your insides the same way, cut wheat out of your diet for a week and see for yourself the difference that makes to your health. Also, the new DDT, the big new tobacco, that spray they spray all over the GMO's they refuse to label that is in your food, they annihilate your gut flora to the point of your own health being much like this chick's. There are scientific mega-studies showing as much.

 

[GodofPecking]

May God bless their little bodies with supernatural strength.

Spooky. The timing, and yes, I'm right there with you and bluebirdhomestead. I hope they can live, but also to know that they have lived. Where there was life, there was life, and the manner of time passing means that life is always the same length to all of us, there is as much lying behind us on the path we took no matter how young or old we are. You felt the life that you had lived up until age 5 was X in length. Today when you are older, it still appears to you as X in length. You have forgotten quite a lot, but it is other than just memory. You do notice when you are 5 or 6 years old in school that the days are long, the hours are long, christmas is an eternity away and you can watch the secondhand go around the clock and it is impossibly slow. When you are old, ten years passes by as 10 minutes did before. So the chicks have had a life, a beginning, and an end is not optional, it's compulsory.

 

[21hens-incharge]

These chicks need to eat sheet or die. I've read pages 12 thru 22 and the first one or two or so, it's exhausting. Everything follows the same course though.

Have you fed POO to these chicks ?

Chicks REQUIRE the gut flora to process food and nutrition, and to develop an immune system. They eat their flocks poo to kick start their digestive tract. No Poo equals no health.

You have a perfect setup to prove this point really, as far as I can see it's all indoors, so wild birds cannot assist, everything is clean and they have no parent, is this correct ? because it explains the lot.

You're asking advice of people who have outdoorsy flocks and so they'd never have seen this problem. It would be rare.

I am conscious of this, basically I breed chooks so that they do not require antibiotics or vaccines and are healthier than those which do. I do incubate very successfully, and either put poo into the chicks water, just a few tasty nuggets gathered from each pen in the yard if you have other chooks, or just gather random bird poop if you have no chooks., otherwise I foster out the chicks to broody hens outdoors and they do the rest. Chicks are generally stronger and are good to go with this method if you get them early. Have no idea if you can save all of your remaining ones or not.

Also, You'll all be relieved (HAAHA pun) to know that this applies to humans, you can either believe me or just be wrong, it's not up for debate. you can go look it all up. People can fix a chronically upset bowel with a simple non surgical below the waist injection from some other donor. MORE interesting research suggests that .... wait a minute...

ARE YOU ALL ENJOYING THIS POST ????
it's such a loverly subject. eww.

so where was I ? oh yes, pants down at the doctors office, or home if you do it yourself, no, I was going on about research which shows that dull listless fatigue ridden, was it mice ? was it rats ? or who cares, thing is there are donor groups of mammals which are SPORTY and bushy-tailed and ones that are the opposite, and by applying gut flora from a different group you can effect the behavior of the patient. Yes, it has THAT much influence on the organism. Meh, anyhow, that's enough of a pointer and you can all go discuss it with a search engine. Do search for research papers of course. It's all a not often talked about subject. I CANT IMAGINE WHY.

While I will not debate that there is beneficial gut stuff in droppings.....

I have raised most of my birds indoors with NO POOP ADDED.
Having raised around 200 chicks over the decades I have only ever lost 2 as chicks. One was weak and a breed known to be frail the other was pushed out from under the heat and got to cold. It could have already been weak too.

Everyone starts somewhere. Most start with chicks and no grown bird exposure so.....no poop added.

I doubt not having grown bird poop is the issue for the OP.

 

[Kiki]

View attachment 1954187

My brooder looks pretty mouse proof yeah? Once the sick ones are healthy, I’ll be moving them into a set up in that dog kennel/run thing you can see in the pic above and keeping the workshop warm enough for them. They will be 5 weeks on sat so I was planning on around 70 degrees. Then I’ll bleach/disinfect this brooder like crazy for the next group.

Mice can fit right through the spot where the chick has its head in the picture.

 

[Kiki]

Can I put it in the lamp thingy that I have the red bulb in?

Regular old school light bulbs can put out enough heat to use in your clippy lamp thing.

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

Except for the feed trough.
Is the brooder floor wire mesh or solid?

It's cool looking brooder but I still wonder how well those heaters work.
I would love to whip out my infrared temp gauge and measure:
the surface of the heaters,
the floor right underneath them,
the floor half way too and right next to the feed trough.
Sorry, my engineering tech mind kicking in.

Yeah as “nice” as this brooder is supposed to be, I kind of hate it. It’s wire mesh bottom. Seems so uncomfortable for them. They can’t dust bath, they can’t scratch, the light stays on all the time, instead of falling through the mesh the poop just sticks to it....I think I might return it for my deposit (I’m renting it) and brood the next group in a kiddie pool with one of those heat plates they can go under. Thoughts?