Lost two chickens, feeling discouraged

[chickenlady12]

Hi. I became a first-time chicken owner in August when I bought six chicks at the ag fair. Everything went well until recently. A few weeks ago, one chicken appeared paralyzed on one side one morning. I brought her inside, tried antibiotics and worming meds, fed her with syringe, but after a few, she died anyway. Only a couple days later another chicken got sick, but with different symptoms (gaping, head-shaking, sleeping all the time). I treated her for gapeworm without success. It turned out to be an impacted crop, which we corrected surgically. She began to recover, but died suddenly one morning after apparently choking on her vomit. Another bird I had to give away because he turned out to be a rooster (and it looks like another may be as well). Last night one of the hens didn't go back in the coop and we had to pick her up and put her in. I noticed today she seems to be sitting more, even though she is eating and I can find nothing wrong with her. If she dies too and my leghorn turns out to be a rooster, I'll be left with only one chicken! Is raising chickens usually this challenging? Might it somehow be my fault? When I called the farmer after the first one became paralyzed, he said he doesn't vaccinate his chickens. Is this important? I have spent countless hours on this site reading about chickens and chicken care and I love my chickens, so I hate to give up, but it's so hard to lose them.

 

[bobbi-j]

Chicken keeping is an ongoing learning experience. I've had chickens for years and do not vaccinate or worm. I lose an occasional bird, but have never had any serious disease outbreaks. Unfortunately, a lot of our learning is experience-based, and we sometimes lose birds in that learning time. Sometimes a chicken will upand die for no apparent reason. I hope you will continue to raise them and it goes better in the future.

 

[Ebal]

Bad luck ... I purchased my first ever batch mine from Murray-McMurray in April, and had 100% success with no problems.