Annie, I really do think it was the protein, and maybe vit E/Sel deficiency. They were both about a week old, kept on pine shavings and fed Purina Flock Raiser. I had one about a month ago who definitely had encephalomalacia. The poly-vi-sol patched him right up. Since then, I've been adding poultry vitamins to their water. When the two died, I went ahead and treated everyone with a round of Sulmet, just in case it was cocci (doubtful, but nothing to play around with). The remaining poults are fine. There's one that was looking a little too sleepy for a couple of days, but seems to be much improved. We now have them on game bird starter and I upped the amount of vitamin in the water. One of the mortalities had a slightly crossed beak and a weird forehead, so I'm not ruling out genetic factors here. Could be they just weren't all that strong to begin with and a little dietary stress was all it took to send them over the edge.
