I can't keep Polish alive!!!!!!!

[Stina]

I don't understand it!!!!!!! After my disaster a couple weeks ago when I lost all 4 of the polish chicks I had a the time....I went and got a new one from the guy I'd originally gotten 3 from....and that one died last night! She looked perfectly fine yesterday!!!! I just don't understand it!

 

[CalebtheChicken]

Sounds like the guy your buying from doesn't take care of them well, so when you buy them they are already on the bad side.

 

[Kedreeva]

First off *hugs* because losing chicks is always hard.

Second, when you buy chicks from someone and they all die, chances are that you shouldn't buy from them again

Definitely don't go back and buy from him again this time, 2 strikes is a seriously bad sign.

If you think it might be environmental, then there's a lot of questions to answer first before anyone can possibly tell you what might have happened.

How old were the chicks?
What were you feeding them? Have you checked your feed for mold or other hazardous agents?
What were you watering them in and the sort of water you were giving them?
What sort of bedding do they have?
What temp is your brooder at? Is it near drafts? Direct sunlight?
How were the chicks behaving before death? Anything the slightest bit out of the ordinary could indicate what had happened.
Did you check for mites and worms?

 

[operator16]

I'm so sorry to hear about your losses!

Do you have other chicks that are thriving? I'm no expert, but it seems that if you have others that are well and these guys are all dying, they there is something wrong with the poor birds and/or the breeder is selling very sick birds.

If you have no other chicks, and all your new/only ones are not making it... Then I think you might benefit from looking in the questions asked by Keedreeva in post #3!

I wish you the best in finding an answer soon!!!

 

[Stina]

The first 3 from him I got at about 3 days old and were about 2 1/2 months old when they died.....the 4th one was from baregretchen and a couple weeks younger than them....this last one I had for about a week-week and a half and was acting normally and probably about a month and a half old. The polish were housed with my other chicks), younger and older in a brooder in my house on pine pellets or a coconut and pine pellet mix. No drafts, no direct sunlight. I had lost 1 non-polish when the first 4 polish were lost...we'd gone away for 3 days to come home to find 4 chicks dead (the other was a serama cockeral 2-3 months old) and the 4th polish died a few days later after acting only slightly lethargic while still eating and drinking...I have 4 d'uccle chicks and an ee that were only a week or so old when we went on that trip as well as a frizzle marans/ee cross that was about 3 weeks old...and a couple older birds... that were and are still perfectly healthy (so far as I can tell)....I've also had some trouble with 3 porcelain dutch chicks...I've lost 2....but they haven't been quite right since I got them from the hatchery (they just weren't growing or feathering properly...I have one left....their problems seem completely unrelated to the polish chicks). Their water source is a 1 gallon chick waterer and I use our tap water (well water....I use it for every animal we have and have not noticed any problems with anything else)...and feed is 20% protein non-medicated chick-starter from TSC (20 lb bags)....unless the bags have come contaminated mold is very unlikely as they eat/spill the entire bag's worth within 2 weeks and I keep it in an airtight container.

 

[DragonEggs]

I've been losing chicks a lot too. I just lost my favorite yesterday, an 8-10 wk old sizzle naked neck. He was so soft and died in my hands. I lost my favorite splash silkie hen just a week before him, no apparent cause of death. Was fine when we went to the store and dead when we got home. I lost 2 chicks before that to wet pox and then about a month ago I lost 2 young seramas about a week after I got them again no apparent cause of death. It's been very demoralizing for me becuase the ones that keep dying are the ones I'm getting especially attached to.

 

[Stina]

ditto on the attachment thing........I am SO in love with the polish and I just can't keep them alive!!! The one I got from Gretchen was my all time favorite chickie ever!

This is also only my 2nd year with chickens....I had incubated and hatched serama eggs last year and managed to raise every one that hatched....only to have ALL of them predatorized throughout the year to having none by the end of winter!!!!!!!! ...and now I can't even raise my chicks!

 

[DragonEggs]

Seems you and I are having bad luck right now. I just finished feeding and watering my flock and treating the pox sores on some of my roos when I noticed MITES!

Ever feel like if it wasn't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all?

Well, they also say misery loves company. Guess we're friends now

 

[Kedreeva]

Wall of text is hard to decipher, but what I think I gathered is that you have had polish and a few other chickens die lately. If they're free ranging, you may want to treat them for worms. It sounds like you had the first three for a while before they died, long enough that the breeder is probably not at fault for them. Has it been very hot near you? If you were gone for a few days and came back to them being dead, it's really hard to judge what may have happened. No way for you to have observed symptoms unfortunately. Don't give up!

 

[MMPoultryFarms]

Quote:
You can contact the department of agriculture in your area. Place one of the dead birds into a ziplock air tight bag and frigerate it DO NOT FREEZE IT. they will instruct you on what to do from there typically a person will drive there and collect the bird there is no fee for pull, or AI testing there might be some additional fee's if you want complete autopsys but hey at least you can identify cause of death and go from there.