Need opinions as to what might have happened.

[Granny Hoffman]

I am very upset and am trying to figure out what might have happened. I hatched out 10 black tail Japanese Bantams on Sunday, right on hatch day. All 10 of them hatched fine, except a couple of them were a little sticky. I left them in the hatcher until Monday and then transferred them to a 10 gal aquarium with a heat lamp, chick starter and water. They were all doing fine, healthy, happy, eating and drinking fine. I was a little worried last night that they might get too hot in the aquarium so I transferred them to the big brooder with chick starter, water and a 75 watt heat lamp. I figured that if they got too hot that they had plenty of room to get away from the heat lamp. This morning all 10 were dead, some were belly up and some were just laying on their sides. Some were under the heat lamp and some were not.
I have hatched hundreds of chicks, large fowl and batams. I am dumbfounded as to what would have happened.
Anybody have any ideas.

Thanks in advance
Granny

 

[mnferalkitty]

I am going to guess too much or not enough heat, or maybe even poisoning of some sort i.e. fumes from chemicals, something in the water, bad food or something like that. This is just a guess

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's a hard one. I can only make pure guesses, obviously. My first thought is some type of bad food, maybe mold in the bedding or something wrong with the feed.

Birds have a pretty sensitive respiratory system. Bad air quality can kill them. Think about that.

 

[Granny Hoffman]

Thank you for the responses. The room that the brooder is in has plenty of fresh air. The only thing that room is being used for is brooding chicks. The bedding was fresh, water was fresh, the food was from a bag that I am currently feeding other chicks from.

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Granny

 

[mnferalkitty]

Do you think they ate to much of the bedding? Or maybe they had a bad reaction to it? Are japanese bantams sensitive to certain kinds of bedding? Also was food little enough for them to eat? I wonder if you can do necropsy on one to see if it had food in its crop etc.or even bedding? These are just ideas and I hope you figure it out. Sorry for your loss

 

[Granny Hoffman]

The bedding was pine pellets, which I have used on other bantams with no problems. The food was small enough for them. I use the same chick starter for all my chicks including my other bantams. Unfortunately I can't do a necropsy because the chicks were taken care of this morning.

Granny