McMurray AE chicks - what have you done?

[farm_mom]

I had 31 Silver Grey Dorkings in my original order, I now have 13. We culled if the birds were crippled for a period of time w/o recuperating. It became a quality of life issue with us. We did have a couple of birds who recuped from the illness, but they didn't behave normally. They would eat and drink, and could walk, but they spent most of their time huddled up on the floor or roost and just not doing much or behaving the way chicks behave. They later perished. The remaining 13 seem to be doing well and there have been no signs of the illness in weeks. We do have a younger batch of EE's from a different hatchery that we intend to integrate, but we want them to be much older and have much more developed immune systems before we do.

 

[highmountainchick]

Out of my order from MM, I lost 9 chicks, 2 chicks recovered but are stunted in growth and 2 others have crippled feet. I see one of the crippled pullets will have to be put down, she just can't navigate around the coop. I then went on and replaced my lost birds with other MM birds from a local farm store and proceeded to lose only two more chicks with one more chick that survived but whom I now consider completely phsycotic. I have mixed all the birds together, I am not going to play cat and mouse with a virus, so if my girls have immunity they will live, if not, not. And beleive it or not, this was my first experience with chickens, it was a rough way to start.

 

[max13077]

Quote:
Nope, these were my first chickens period. I never had any pet birds either. So whatever was wrong with them, they brought along from some other place.