Lost a chick this morning--trying to figure out what happened...

[lori9878]

Hi Everyone,

I got a shipment of chicks yesterday. I had ordered them back in June and had no idea it would be so abnormally hot when they shipped--but they all arrived safely and all seemed okay all day yesterday. They have all been having some watery poops, but I understand that it can be due to the stress of shipping and heat. Their brooder is in my garage, but until this insane heat is over, I'm keeping them in a makeshift brooder in my house where I can control the temps better. Anyway, this morning I noticed that one of my babies was on its back and the others were just walking all over it. I scooped it up and noticed that it was not right at all. It had a pasty butt, so I cleaned it up (it was the first time I've ever seen pasty butt). I took it back to the brooder and tried to get it to drink some water, but it didn't drink anything. Within about 10 minutes, the little thing JUMPED out of my hand. At first, I thought it was perking up, and I set it down in the brooder. It laid down for a few seconds, then jumped again. At that point, I knew it was something bad--but I don't know what--a seizure maybe? The little chick did this about 6 or 8 times in the next five minutes as I cradled it in my hand. It pooped one more time, then a few seconds later, it died in my hand. A few minutes after it died, I noticed some orangey-pinkish, opaque fluid coming from the beak. I've never had a chick die like this, and I am hoping that it isn't something that will repeat itself in my remaining chicks. So far, all of the others seem perfectly okay.

Can anyone give me an idea of what might have caused this? Was the stress from shipment too much? It seemed okay all day yesterday.... Could it have eaten something bad? Any ideas are appreciated!

 

[RedRoosterFarm]

the trip might of been too much or the heat. Mine die like what you are discribing. The goo from the mouth too. Maybe the stress was just to much. Sugar water or scrambled eggs might help.

 

[Sweetpeaswan]

So sorry to hear about your little peep. Pasty butt can really be a problem. When ever we get chicks in at the
store we take them out right away and give them a vitamin electrolyte mix in water...Then we monitor them
for the pasty butt and make sure there eating and drinking. Heat and stress is always a problem but we also
found that the third day after a delivery when all appeared healthy we lost a bunch of chicks...We called it
D Day.....we noticed most of these little guys just weren't growing FTT (failure to thrive) once we passed that
day our mortality rate was good. We had very few losses. Just hang in there..survival of the fittest.

 

[PoultryPedia]

If you run into pasty butt or have concern, you can carefully trim away the fluff right around their vents. Then even gooey poop rarely gets stuck there.
So sorry for your sad loss of your little one.

I hope the rest do well.

 

[Matt A NC]

My best guess:

Every now that then a chick can get stuck upside down. A strong chick can normally kick off another chick and get up right. Your chick was probably still a bit stressed/tired from shipping and instead of righting itself it got stomped repeatedly. Chicks like to step on anything they can to get just a tick higher then the rest. That includes one of their hatch mates.

It most likely had quite serious internal injuries by the time you found it. There was nothing you could have done.

I almost lost a poult a couple years ago. She hatched a little odd and kept flipping the first 3-4 days. I was constantly checking and setting her up. One day I found her flipped under the lamp and about cooked. I wetted my hand and held Wabbles(named the first day) till she cooled down and wanted to walk around again. Chicks and everything else are so fragile at that age it doesn't take much to end their little lives.

Matt