Some basic questions to rule stuff out:
-What are you feeding them?
- What are your current temperatures; is it especially hot where you are right now?
-Have you seen anything odd with their droppings like blood or especially watery or the wrong color?
-How long were you noticing this behaviour with your first pullet and how long has this one been acting off?
- Other than the clear weakness and being skinnier, is there anything else you can see physically like feather loss, irritated skin, weepy eyes, or external parasites?
We live in florida where itās been reaching the 90Ā°s, however there is full shade, pretty good air flow, and the ground stays fairly damp due to frequent rain. We also give them cold/frozen watermelon, blueberries, sprouted lentils, sweet potato, carrots. etc. And give them fresh cold water at least once a day in an effort to keep them cool.
I have noticed that one of the black sex links has kind of explosive diarrhea? But I only saw it happen once and that was shortly after eating watermelon so I chalked it up to that since I had seen the exact same thing happen to one of my cochins.
The first pullet seemed pretty much normal from the beginning. She was more skittish than the rest of them but besides that nothing was wrong. She never figured out how to roost in the 3 weeks she was in the outside pullet cage and always slept on the ground. She was mostly fine until I realized that she had poor balance but again I chalked it up to her being an orpington because every orp. iāve had has been pretty dumb so I didnt think much about it. Then she died two or three days later.
This one (Queenie) has been acting off for 3 ish days. Before this she was completely fine, high energy, loved interacting with me. Now she wonāt get up or move on her own at all.
I donāt see anything physically wrong with her except for a couple gnats flying around and on her face, but there are gnats everywhere around here.
Weāve been raising chickens for quite a few years now and Iāve never had a pullet or chick die. Iāve always given them the same stuff, do the same things, etc. Could this just be a bad bunch? I know
tractor supply isnāt all that great but thatās where all of our chickens are sourced from, even the oneās weāve rescued.
This is the feed we give them and our entire flock. Weāre due to buy more feed today. Should we stop getting this brand?
. Iām mostly sad for my little brother (5 y/o) because she was his favorite one. He named her the day we got her and had come out to visit her every single day. But I told him what happened and he got to say goodbye and he gave the saddest little speech I almost cried
.
