My chicks keep dieing! What am I doing wrong?!

[ChickieBooBoo]

Quote:
No dear of course not, Lord have mercy. However there have been some who have not done research and I always read things two and three times, cuz I miss somethings. That's why I suggest it. Brooding chicks in a brooder and using a broody hen are different. Broody hens are not all the same and it's an iffy thing sometimes.

I'm not sure you even made any mistakes. We all do our best, I'm sure.

Take care,

Rancher

im sure ive made a mistake. I should have just waited till it was spring and it was warmer, and done more research. then i wouldnt be sitting here bawling my eyes out

Exactly

 

[MedChicken]

Quote:

im sure ive made a mistake. I should have just waited till it was spring and it was warmer, and done more research. then i wouldnt be sitting here bawling my eyes out

Exactly

Let's stop rubbing it in and try to be helpful, shall we?

Duckgirl, I know it's probably hard to focus right now, but let's look at things that can be done NOW to try to resolve this issue. Cry when it's all over, but now you have an obligation to your remaining chicks to try to keep them alive. Focus on them.

Assuming that we're dealing with a calcium issue... TONIGHT, go out to the coop and
- Make sure the chicks have enough water and that it does not include any salt, which can hurt the kidneys more
- Take away the layer feed. Replace it with any or several of the following: finely chopped hard-boiled egg, yogurt, oatmeal, cooked pasta, ground/pureed carrots, cottage cheese. Add chick starter as soon as you can. We don't want to make the problem worse!

Tomorrow
- Get chick starter (medicated or non-medicated)
- Make sure the water stays full at all times
- Check for bloody stools and pasty butt and treat appropriately

Keep us informed.

 

[Peachesbabychick]

Quote:
Exactly

Let's stop rubbing it in and try to be helpful, shall we?

Duckgirl, I know it's probably hard to focus right now, but let's look at things that can be done NOW to try to resolve this issue. Cry when it's all over, but now you have an obligation to your remaining chicks to try to keep them alive. Focus on them.

Assuming that we're dealing with a calcium issue... TONIGHT, go out to the coop and
- Make sure the chicks have enough water and that it does not include any salt, which can hurt the kidneys more
- Take away the layer feed. Replace it with any or several of the following: finely chopped hard-boiled egg, yogurt, oatmeal, cooked pasta, ground/pureed carrots, cottage cheese. Add chick starter as soon as you can. We don't want to make the problem worse!

Tomorrow
- Get chick starter (medicated or non-medicated)
- Make sure the water stays full at all times
- Check for bloody stools and pasty butt and treat appropriately

Keep us informed.

Thankyou Medchicken. Duck Girl needs HELP not lecturing. I'm sure she appreciates your information.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

Quote:
Exactly

Let's stop rubbing it in and try to be helpful, shall we?

Duckgirl, I know it's probably hard to focus right now, but let's look at things that can be done NOW to try to resolve this issue. Cry when it's all over, but now you have an obligation to your remaining chicks to try to keep them alive. Focus on them.

Assuming that we're dealing with a calcium issue... TONIGHT, go out to the coop and
- Make sure the chicks have enough water and that it does not include any salt, which can hurt the kidneys more
- Take away the layer feed. Replace it with any or several of the following: finely chopped hard-boiled egg, yogurt, oatmeal, cooked pasta, ground/pureed carrots, cottage cheese. Add chick starter as soon as you can. We don't want to make the problem worse!

Tomorrow
- Get chick starter (medicated or non-medicated)
- Make sure the water stays full at all times
- Check for bloody stools and pasty butt and treat appropriately

Keep us informed.

OK, thanks, i was just going out to fill water again anyway. and i we think we have some cottage cheese... will give a update tomarrow (im home schooled so i can get on in the middle of school to post updates)

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

DG- I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. No one loves their birds more than you. You do not know if you did something or if it's a nature thing. And you do more research than anyone I know. (besides myself

So focus on finding the reason why this is happening and then you can work on fixing it.

Love Ya Girl!!!

 

[70%cocoa]

It's so upsetting when unexpected deaths happen

Sometimes chicks die even though we give them everything they need. There are about 30 illnesses that are fatal to chickens (my avian vet told me). We can't cover every single thing.

I think that MedChicken has given really great advice. Chick starter crumble is the way to go, till they are 6 weeks old. Personally, I use the medicated one. Then they can go onto a pullet grower food.

Getting something to treat for coccidiosis is a good plan too. Amprol (or Amprolium) is a good coccidiosis medication. You put it in their drinking water. I tend to treat for coccidiosis automatically if I see a sick chick. Even a sick adult chicken. It's so common that it's the first thing I assume when I see a problem.

Here's hoping that you have no other problems with these little guys.

 

[Ole rooster]

I've tried to read the post on this one but nothing is going in the same direction. You folks are posting all over the place. The OP said she had a broody hen raising the chicks. So why a light, thermometor or any other of things that has nothing to do with a hen raising her chicks. Why not respect the mama hen to do the right thing? If a chicken is raising the little ones she takes them to water, but if they are in a brooder 24/7 is a necessity. We all know that a broody hen and the chicks are not kept in a brooder with a light. She said they were outside most of the time. But now y'all have me confused.

So is the chicks being raised by a hen or are they in a brooder with a light?

 

[Gypsy07]

A couple of things:

Medicated feed to prevent cocci is more important for chicks reared in a brooder, as they have no chance to gradually build up their natural immunity. Cocci lives in the soil, the growing chicks get put outside for the first time when they're say 6-8 weeks old and BAM they get hit with it. For chicks reared under a broody hen with access to the outside world right from hatch, cocci won't normally be an issue, even if it's present in the soil. I don't think the lack of medicated feed is likely to have been the problem here...

Ideally chicks SHOULD be fed on chick crumbles, and layers/growers feed is definitely not ideal for them. However, when my hen raised her own chicks they only had chick crumbs exclusively for the first few days when they were kept in a separate shed. When the chicks were a few days old, their mother marched them back to live into the main coop, where the adult hens ate the chick crumbs and the baby chicks insisted on eating the layers pellets. As far as I could see, it didn't do them any harm. They're now 8 months old and seem to be in perfect health. So while you really should get chick crumbs and try to feed them to your chicks, that may not have been the problem. I'm not saying for definite that it wasn't the problem with your chicks, just that it might not have been.

The water thing is EXTREMELY important. You should NEVER let them run out of water. However, again, not having access to water for an hour or so once or twice a day shouldn't kill them immediately. I know this cause it's happened to me a few times in the past. I've had waterers tipped over, waterers drunk dry, chick-sitters that have forgotten to stop by and check on them, that sort of thing. So unless they were without water for hours on end, or constantly getting too little water each day to keep them sufficiently hydrated, again, I don't think that was definitely the problem.

I'd imagine you're most likely looking at an unfortunate combination of all these things, some type of illness other than cocci, or like a couple of people have suggested, simply that the hen isn't managing to keep all the chicks warm enough. Some hens just aren't the best mothers, and some need a bit of help to get it right. I would always shut the hen indoors in a shed or in a penned off area inside a barn for the first few days at least. Once chicks get to a few days old they're usually okay unless the mother hen rejects them or they're hit by an illness.

So while you haven't done everything perfectly, the deaths could still have been down to something that wasn't your fault.

Get some chick crumbles asap, get a bigger waterer asap, and pay close attention to how good a mother the hen seems to be.

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

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She has them under the hen.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

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She has them under the hen.

Corect QJ!