I believe I owe an apology to Ideal.

[debilorrah]

A while back, I had ordered some ducks and they came with packing peanuts, which I expected. There were 7 ducks and 17 packing peanuts. I lost 2 ducks and 14 packing peanuts.

I came here and complained about it, and someone from Ideal kindly posted that they would replace the lost ducklings. The next day, I discovered mice in the brooder.

So I am here to say that I believe it was the mice that killed the babies and nothing Ideal did wrong. We have since fixed the issue with the brooder and my new hatchlings are doing well, as are the 3 remaining packing peanuts - all roos, and cute as all get out.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Deb, you think the mice killed them? Were they chewed up?

 

[redhen]

Those mice are probably eating a lot of your feed too, Debi...
But if they wernt chewed up.. maybe the mice didnt kill them?? Rats yeah, i can see... but not about mice?? Maybe though...

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

I doubt mice killed them, yes unless they were half eaten. If they were just dead, then they just dies from being weak.
I usually have over half the chicks dead on arrival any time I order projetc stuff from a hatchery of any name. The hatchery stock is usually weaker than breeder line due to massive inbreeding, and 3-4 days sometime in the mail from all that Priority shipping

 

[RAREROO]

Are you sure they were mice or were they rats ? I think rats would be more likely, I've had rats kill almost half of a whole clutch of chicks before when I was floor brooding a batch in the floor of an 8x8 ft building. I had some many that were just dead with a small red sore ( bite more) under their wing, the heads were eaten off of some, and some chicks were gone all together and a rat would be the only thing that could have gotten in there and there was a hole in the ground that kept opening back up after I would uncover it and it was big enough for a rat and after I had mentioned to someone what had happened to the chicks, they suggested a rat and I was able to figure out that the whole was from a rat and I had a few boards laying by the outside of the building that I turned over and there were a couple young rats under there so I put some poison cubes in the floor of the barn ( I had taken the surviving chicks out the day the others were killed btw) and ran the water hose down in the hole in the dirt that kept getting uncovered and a few days later I found a couple dead young ones laying in the floor of the barn and I guess I either poisoned or drown the big mama rat that was digging the whole becuase it stopped getting dug back out. But yeah, rats and maybe mice too will kill them.

 

[debilorrah]

Really? You guys don't think the mice killed them? Well crap.

 

[sourland]

Mice are commonly carriers of salmonella. Mice feces in a pigeon loft will kill the pigeons through a salmonella infection. I do not know if the same is true for chicks.

 

[spiritdance]

Quote:
Wow! I think I'd change hatcheries or else investigate how your local PO is handling your orders. I've ordered from Ideal and McMurray numerous times and out of all the shipments (over 200 birds cumulatively) I've only lost 2 chicks and a duckling in shipping. And the box the chicks were in was dented like the PO mishandled it.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

I've used them all, it's just hatchery chicks and priority mail. Any time I get from an actual breeder and or have the express in, they all do great. I also ship about 5,000 chicks a year my self and only loose 1-2 per season. So it's not the P.O. it's the stock.
Scan threw the threads on here from over the years, there's thousands of post with very similar results. Fortunately, you've been lucky so far