Losing broilers - Any suggestions?

[Spruce92]

We bought two dozen meat chickens this year and all was well until we put the birds outside at about 5 weeks. A few birds at a time are dying off and it looks like we are going to lose them all eventually. It starts with the chicken appearing to get lame and their legs become completely stiff and do not appear to bend. They stop moving and cannot get to their food or water. After a few days they die. There are no other symptoms that we notice.

We are feeding a Blue Seal chick grower and they have fresh water daily.

A few years ago we had turkeys in that pen. Is that the problem?
We also recently seeded the pen with grass. Is that an issue?

Does anyone have any ideas before we lose all of the chicks?

 

[justusnak]

Are the free feeding? Maybe they are getting too big? Sounds like might be butcher time. Are these CornishX? Most butcher between 6 and 8 weeks.

 

[Spruce92]

We have thought about them being too big. I believe they are CornishX. They don't look too big to us but maybe it is because we had turkeys in the past. Thanks for the comments.