I'm so frustrated. Chicks just don't seem to do well in this house! I thought maybe it was our brooder last year but with two new brooders in two different rooms in the house, I can rule that out. We lost another chick this morning (the last weak one from the start) and a seemingly healthy one just became lethargic and won't eat/drink. This is the same thing that happened last year. I treated for cocci last year just in case and it didn't change the outcome.
One brooder has the eco glow, the other has a lamp. The chicks run around like the temp is good, no huddling and no avoiding the lamp/brooder. They have food and clean water (changed multiple times a day with vitamins added). Their brooders are cleaned every couple days.
I can't figure out why we are losing so many. A few I could tell wouldn't make it as soon as we took them out of the box but the one today seemed fine the whole week. Very frustrating. I have tried force feeding them but it doesn't help our maybe it helps them last a day or two extra but it never gets them to improve. I hope we have better luck with any chicks we hatch! I wonder if there is something in the house that any chick with a weakness just can't handle? Problem with that theory is we seem to do fine with the feed store chicks, only lost 1 out of 9 of those compared to 7 out of 25 of the shipped chicks.
Do you feed them medicated feed?
When I have chicks, I also put some of the older chickens deep litter in with them within the first few days. My understanding is that it helps their immune systems by getting some of the good bacteria and stuff, like they do when they are with their moms. They actually eat their mothers poop a little when they are raised by their mom. Sounds gross, but guess it's the natural thing to do.
The last two orders I got, I withheld food for a few hours and made sure they were drinking well before I gave them food. I also gave them wet food with a few drops of unpasturized apple cider vinegar with the mother. The
Walmart here has the Heinz brand. Plus I add the powdered electrolytes from Meyer's to their water for the 1st week. The ACV with the mother is supposed to help their digestion, immune system, etc.
The last batch of chicks I had I only did the medicated feed for a week then change to regular chick starter and they did fine.
I had one from the last 16 die in a few hours of delivery and one CW that had wry neck but recovered after a little separation time and droplets of electrolytes.
I expected to have more losses with all my orders, that's one reason I ended up with too many chickens now. You may be doing a lot of this already, but trying to help, I am new at this too. I think newer then you are. You're so brave to try to hatch now, I have not gotten to that point yet. Hang in there you'll figure it out.
I'll have to go back and find the original post. It looked like y'all had the rest of them ID'd pretty much how I was thinking except these little ones, though. And in other news, my Meyer Silver Lakenvelder is FINALLY laying! She will be 10 months old on the 12th. I don't know how old she was when she started, though, because I found her first egg under the nest boxes, frozen solid and split. :/ Oh, well. But that means all my babies are laying and so they're all grown up. 
Now I'm really getting the chickie fever! 74 days left until I pick up my new girls. 
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