I am sad, what could have happened????? :0(

[dandydoodle]

I know no one can tell me exactly what happened but, I am sad and just curious if anyone has any suggestions about what might have happened. I have 14 baby chicks they are about 6 weeks old and I went out today to find one of my favorite babies dead.

They are getting a big enough to come out of the brooder and I hadn't done it just yet. I don't think they were to crowded because, the brooder is huge. Since they is 14 of them in there they were getting kind of spastic. I thought maybe they trampled it but, is that even possible that they could kill it by stepping on it? I also thought maybe it got to cold the low in the night is about 34 degrees but, they still have a heat lamp and that wasn't the first night it has been that cold. Everyone was fine all the other nights. Not to mention when I found her she was pretty close to the light so I don't think she was cold.

Also they are pretty much feathered out so I think they would be okay without and light and they still have one. She didn't seem like anything was wrong with her, she seemed really healthy and just as energetic as all the rest. Does this happen alot that a 6 week old that seems perfectly healthy just drops dead??? Does anyone have any suggestions what do you think could have happened. There was no blood or any sign of a struggle. There is no way a predator got a hold of it. Any thoughts????

It was one of my favorites and we planned on keeping her.

Thanks for listening,
Michelle

 

[seminolewind]

It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong. With that many chicks and a heat lamp and them being 6 weeks old, it doesn't sound bad to me.
Maybe it just died. When they do die, they look trampled, like flattened out.

If it's something contagious, you'll have to see if you lose another one or two. Sorry

 

[dandydoodle]

Do ya'll think it could've got trampled would this kill it??? Do you think it could have got to cold. Do ya'll think something was just wrong with it I didn't know?

 

[2chickenrich]

we just got 34 new chicks and I think you lose a few anyway and it can be anything . they move away from the light if it is too hot. They do step on each other alot and there is nothing you can do about that , try not to feel to bad ,it happens.

 

[Olive Hill]

How big is your brooder? What is it made out of? Where is it located? How high do you have your heat lamp hung above the beddding?

If it got cold last night and the heat lamp is concentrated in a small area it's possible that it got on the bottom of a pile and was crushed/suffocated.

 

[Lacrystol]

If there spot is to small, then yes, it is possible they got trampled or sufficated from each other.. I had 19 baby silkies that tried very hard to get into there food dish to go to bed. This was a square little plastic container. They were to young to know this is not sleeping grounds. So one night when I went out to put them to bed because I knew they were going to be in the food dish, sure enough I found two of them dead at the bottom.. They cuddled on top of one another and the ones on the bottom had sufficated... So it is possible for youngsters to accidently kill one another..

 

[dandydoodle]

I wouldn't be surprised if she did suffocate.

Where I found her leads me to believe she died in her sleep. I bet she was at the bottom of the pile. I don't understand though I go down there often and they don't seem to be cold. I can't believe they did that.

Thanks everyone I was gonna get rid of about 6 of them and I did that today. It kills me if I had just done it yesterday maybe she would still be alive.

 

[galanie]

You never want to hear someone say "It's (just) a chicken" but for me, when one of mine died, those words brought me comfort. It's a chicken and their lives are often cruel. At least it died in it's sleep and not the horrible ways that commercial birds meet their ends. Don't be hard on yourself, things happen and sometimes there's just nothing you could have done.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The temperature of the outside air isn't relevant. The sleeping arrangement, even previous to last night, is relevant. At 3 weeks and beyond, chicks will sleep either on mini-roosts, think a cookie cooling rack, below the heat lamp, if one is provided, This does two things. It pre-trains them to sleep on a roost and discourages sleeping in a pile, as it seems some breeds prefer to do, at their own risk.

Chicks without a mini-roost system would preferably sleep in a kind of sleeping circle. Again, not in a pile. The whole piling thing is to be discouraged. Providing enough heat to discourage that isn't difficult.

Again, brooding in ambient temperatures of 20F to 30F is done all the time and is irrelevant, IF the temperature under the brooding lamp is kept at 90F for newbies and 80F for middlers and 75F for 5 weekers. Once I brood more than 12 chicks, I usually create two heat circles, with two lamps, to spread them out.

Could she have smothered? Maybe, but at that age, it isn't as likely. Chicks are bigger and able to wrestle themselves free from others that crowd them. In short, you may never know. Chicks die. Pullets die. Old hens die. Sadly, living things die. Sometimes without any apparent warning. It's sad, but this is an aspect of husbandry and that cannot always be avoided and sometimes cannot be explained, only conjecture and speculation, which doesn't help much.

 

[SteveBaz]

So sorry but there is not enough info to really tell. As Fred said it happens.

So sorry. I have been told that 3 cuft to each bird and you have 14 birds in the brooder and at 6 weeks they are the size of softballs. At 25 weeks they are the size of footballs. You say the brooder is huge, is it 6' X 6'? What size?