Mass Chick Death- WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED???

[HeartsDelight]

Do both ages get the same food? No chance of spoiled feed for the younger ones?

Have you used any new cleaning products recently?

 

[Amc29]

What do you use for heat? Do you use anything that might cause carbon monoxide poisoning if there is a leak?

 

[Sue Gremlin]

When chicks panic, they pile up on top of each other and the ones underneath suffocate. This sounds to me like this could be what happened. A loud noise would do that.

 

[WestCoast Farm]

No new cleaning products, no cats inside & our cats are beyond not interested. No humans- we have 5 guard dogs loose inside a fenced / gated property and there’s no way.

Heat is a heating plate plugged in for the younger ones. Older ones have a heat lamp but I had unplugged it as it is warming up here & seemed too hot with it on.

It’s very possible I didn’t shut the wire pen properly and the little ones came out through the gap in the door. That’s happened before, and I’ve found them huddled together in a ball, alive but unhappy.

So why did I find them dead throughout, scattered and crammed into nooks and crannies, like terrified and dead, some in their pen dead, most out of the pen
dead, and two dead in the pen with the bigger ones?

I did find:

1) some moldy feed in their bucket of medicated starter, where the nipple waterer leaked into it.

2) I had been supplementing them with some yogurt that was past date.

Here’s a photo from inside their pen, of the batch before.

 

[WestCoast Farm]

When chicks panic, they pile up on top of each other and the ones underneath suffocate. This sounds to me like this could be what happened. A loud noise would do that.

Totally agree- but they were scattered like a grenade hit- not piled up at all.

 

[Fishkeeper]

I don't think it would have been bugs, unless a ton of fire ants got in there and then left without a trace.

Do you still have the bodies? I'd inspect them to see if the necks seem broken. Something like a mink could have done that. They kill way more than they can eat, I'm guessing for practice? There would probably be some blood, but I guess it's possible a mink has its killing method down really well.

It could have been a poison that some of them had an immunity to for one reason or another, though I don't know where that poison could have come from.

 

[WestCoast Farm]

What do you use for heat? Do you use anything that might cause carbon monoxide poisoning if there is a leak?

Electric heat plate.
All surviving chicks were found safe & sound under their heat plate.

No source of CO2.

 

[WestCoast Farm]

I don't think it would have been bugs, unless a ton of fire ants got in there and then left without a trace.

Do you still have the bodies? I'd inspect them to see if the necks seem broken.

They had rigor when I found them. Many were contorted with heads bent backwards in poses that looked like they were in terror or agony.

I was so upset I didn’t keep the bodies, I burned them.

 

[Fishkeeper]

Yeah, that sounds like poison, although rigor can mess poses up a bit.

 

[WestCoast Farm]

I'm dumbstuck. I mean, a sudden loud scare could possibly kill them. What do you feed? Anything in the water?

I feed medicated starter, supplement with some yogurt. I change the water regularly but I noticed the nipple waterers were in need of a good cleaning.