Hi, I'm in desperate search for answer as to what happened with my chicks.. Here we go:
At the beginning of November I took in a friends seven hens. She was loosing her home and gave me everything for free, her coop, her feed, her girls, everything. Knowing her hens were healthy as I saw them pretty often and did a quick health check before doing this, I put them in with the rest of my flock.. That's not where things went wrong. She had informed me that one of her two Golden Laced Wynadottes was broody for sometime, and observing this myself, I put her with the babies. She was not getting along with the other hens or rooster at all, but instantly became a mother to these chicks. She continued laying eggs for the next day. Two days after I placed her in the baby pen, I found her dead, babies still snuggled under her trying to stay warm. I promptly did a check for any mites or any other common things wrong. Nothing. I rid of her body and things seemed to be fine for a while. A couple days later, I found one of my Old English Bantam chicks dead. I didnt think much of it since they were still somewhat young, checked the body, found nothing, and got rid of it. About two weeks later tragedy struck the coop. I would find a dead chick almost every morning. Nothing seemed to be wrong with them, they would seem fine when I left them for the day but when I came back would be dead. One day I noticed one of the chicks was extremely week and had one eye closed. I took the chick home thinking that maybe I could save it. That night the chick showed the following symptoms:
*Foaming in the mouth almost as if spit was collecting and wouldnt go down
*A clicking from his chest/throat whenever he would breathe
*Lethargic
*Not eating or drinking
*Extremely weak
*Eyes were shut tight and would not open them
*Discharge from nose
Poop was normal. Later that morning he died. I found lice on him the night I brought him home but not enough to cause a problem. As a precaution I went ahead and put Diatomacous Earth in thier coop after I cleaned everything out and dusted the chicks. At this point I had two of my Old English bantam chicks, two Golden Comet chicks, two Silkies, and a Turkin/Silkie cross (my little boy)... That helped for a couple night until I found my blonde Old English chick dead.. the following dead my Turkin died.. the next day the last Old English died. With my silkies still alive and clinging on to hope I separated them into breeding cages, dusted them with DE again, even though they didnt have mites, and hoped for the best. Today everyone was perfectly fine and healthy. Can anybody please tell me what happened in order to prevent this again?
At the beginning of November I took in a friends seven hens. She was loosing her home and gave me everything for free, her coop, her feed, her girls, everything. Knowing her hens were healthy as I saw them pretty often and did a quick health check before doing this, I put them in with the rest of my flock.. That's not where things went wrong. She had informed me that one of her two Golden Laced Wynadottes was broody for sometime, and observing this myself, I put her with the babies. She was not getting along with the other hens or rooster at all, but instantly became a mother to these chicks. She continued laying eggs for the next day. Two days after I placed her in the baby pen, I found her dead, babies still snuggled under her trying to stay warm. I promptly did a check for any mites or any other common things wrong. Nothing. I rid of her body and things seemed to be fine for a while. A couple days later, I found one of my Old English Bantam chicks dead. I didnt think much of it since they were still somewhat young, checked the body, found nothing, and got rid of it. About two weeks later tragedy struck the coop. I would find a dead chick almost every morning. Nothing seemed to be wrong with them, they would seem fine when I left them for the day but when I came back would be dead. One day I noticed one of the chicks was extremely week and had one eye closed. I took the chick home thinking that maybe I could save it. That night the chick showed the following symptoms:
*Foaming in the mouth almost as if spit was collecting and wouldnt go down
*A clicking from his chest/throat whenever he would breathe
*Lethargic
*Not eating or drinking
*Extremely weak
*Eyes were shut tight and would not open them
*Discharge from nose
Poop was normal. Later that morning he died. I found lice on him the night I brought him home but not enough to cause a problem. As a precaution I went ahead and put Diatomacous Earth in thier coop after I cleaned everything out and dusted the chicks. At this point I had two of my Old English bantam chicks, two Golden Comet chicks, two Silkies, and a Turkin/Silkie cross (my little boy)... That helped for a couple night until I found my blonde Old English chick dead.. the following dead my Turkin died.. the next day the last Old English died. With my silkies still alive and clinging on to hope I separated them into breeding cages, dusted them with DE again, even though they didnt have mites, and hoped for the best. Today everyone was perfectly fine and healthy. Can anybody please tell me what happened in order to prevent this again?
