Just bad luck?

[RogerTheChicken]

is this bad luck, I have never raised a white crested black polish bantam over 5 months, it started when my white crested black polish bantam from theSeptember order of chicks from mpc , it was mid December and it was very cold, I left all of the chickens in the coop that day, when I came home, my polish bantam was laying in the coop smothered, he was barely breathing, he died 5 minutes later, one month later I found the hen polish bantam in the coop (they had been let out that day) laying there dead and smothered. Fast forward to today, I have two white crested black polish bantam chicks that I bought at tsc recently, one chick was smothered yesterday but was alive, I was gonna cull him, but I thought about the what ifs, so I didn't cull it, I held it under the heat lamp and it came back around, it was very sleepy but it had made progress, at the end of the day it was back to normal, went out there this morning and couldn't find him, I dug under the pine shavings and there it was, it was already dead, after that I changed the chicks water and they all ran too it while I was putting it in, I buried the chick and went back to the others, I could not find my other polish bantam now, I searched for it for an hour, I looked all over the shop, I noticed the water was full of shavings so I picked it up to dump it out, there lay the last white crested black polish bantam, dead under the water. Isnt it strange that all 4 of my white crested black polish bantams have all died from being smothered

 

[rainbowrooster]

So, will you do anything different with the next ones you get?

 

[scratch'n'peck]

I'm sorry about the losses. I'm not sure if "smothered" is the most accurate description of the cause of death. Perhaps they were more susceptible than your other chickens to a respiratory infection. When they died they may have had convulsions, and that may have resulted in them being buried in the bedding. If you have other losses you may want to send the body for a low cost or free necropsy to find out the cause of death: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf OR https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/40141/link-find-your-state-vet-for-a-necropsy

 

[RogerTheChicken]

I'm sorry about the losses.  I'm not sure  if "smothered" is the most accurate description of the cause of death.  Perhaps they were more susceptible than your other chickens to a respiratory infection.  When they died they may have had convulsions, and that may have resulted in them being buried in the bedding.  If you have other losses you may want to send the body for a low cost or free necropsy to find out the cause of death: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf  OR  https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/40141/link-find-your-state-vet-for-a-necropsy

I know the chicks were smothered, and the cockerel, I smashed one chick, a goose stepped on the other chick, and the cockerel was in a medium sized coop with 40 more chickens