Lost a chick...

[irret13]

All were find this morning. About three hours later my daughter noticed one of them was dead. She was in the middle of the brooder. No obvious signs of trauma. They are starting to get more active and I wonder if the others hurt her or if it was something else. A couple of them are probably 3 weeks old and the rest are probably 2 weeks old. They all have decent wing feathers and tail feathers coming in. We are having a heat spell and I'm wondering if I should turn off the heat lamp. It is on one end of the brooder with the food and water at the other end. They tend to sleep on the warmer side in two piles. The temperature on the warm end is about 85 degrees and the cool end is about 75 degrees. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Boonie Stomper]

Examine the chick for evidence. Is it thinner/smaller than other same age and type chicks? Does it have a mucky rear end ?(pasty butt can kill)... any red areas?

 

[azygous]

At age three weeks, chicks no longer need heat during the daytime as long as the room temp is moderate. While the temps in your brooder lack a distinctly cool space in which chicks can shed excess heat, the brooder isn't overly warm at the temps you reported.

However, if you have a large number of chicks and limited brooder space, a chick would have a hard time cooling down if overheated. That information, number of chicks and size of brooder, would have been helpful. Sometimes chicks try to get away from heat or toward heat and if the brooder is too small, a chick can get piled on and smothered if adequate space is lacking.

Another thing that kills a chick quickly is constipation, often following pasty butt. During the first few weeks, you need to be constantly monitoring behavior so you can identify a chick in trouble early enough to intervene. A chick that stands still instead of running around, curious and interacting with the others is a chick in trouble.

If you are feeding treats and not providing chick grit, that can be a source of constipation and impacted crops.

These are just a few of the most common causes of death in a brooder. I'm sorry it had to happen to you. It's always a very sad experience.

 

[irret13]

Thank you both for your replies. I will try turning off the light during the day since my daughter is on spring break and she can monitor them. I have been watching their vents and everyone is clean. I got the chicks 5 days ago and this chick was always pretty calm and quiet. Maybe she was just not healthy to begin with but she was eating and drinking. I have not done treats yet. I looked at grit at the feed store and the pieces looked too large for chicks. Is there an alternative grit? They are going into a refrigerator box in the garage this weekend so they will have lots more room. They are in a large plastic tub with an old window screen on top for now. I had planned on keeping them in there for about 10 days.

 

[azygous]

You should be able to buy chick grit. The particles are the size of sand.

 

[Boonie Stomper]

I just used some coarse sand leftover fom gardening junk...