Keets keep turning up dead and one has a runny eye! Please help!

[LostGosling]

We hatched out 17 keets under broody chickens on the 16th and have lost 2 of unknown causes. First, they end up getting lost I guess from being too slow to keep up. Then they wander around peeping patheticly with their wings dropped until I find them. I brought one in the house yesterday into an air conditioned room and gave it a drink to see if it was suffering from heat exhaustion. That evening when I went to shut the barn up, I found it sprawled out dead in the bottom of the cage (They range during the day and are in cages at night). We also have one with a runny eye that is otherwise healthy other than that. Dirt, straw, and eye crusting completely plaster it's eye shut if I don't keep it cleaned off. It started right after we changed from straw bedding to wood chips. Anybody know what might be wrong with my keets?

 

[PeepsCA]

My guess would be that it's probably the wood chips/shavings. If they are cedar chips/shavings, I'd take them out immediately, the tannins in the cedar are toxic to young keets (fine for adults, but not for keets).

They may be eating the chips/shavings and the one that died may have been impacted. Most shavings are pretty dusty and that can cause respiratory problems and eye issues... can you change the bedding back to straw and see if that helps?

You can dab a bit of regular neosporin (NOT the kind with pain relief) in the keet's eye morning and night until it stops running, crusting and sticking shut, might just take a couple days of medicating it.