new order of baby chicks dying fast!!!

[Judy]

Quote:
This really bothers me, that these hatcheries ship over the weekend. If they left the hatchery Thursday they were likely hatched Wednesday. That's a long time without water. Even if they hatched Thursday and were shipped Friday it's a long time. I'll bet these losses are nothing but shipping stress. So sorry you are going through this.

Not only is the PO closed on Sunday, I'm convinced they do not do the moving forward of mail on Saturday that they do during the week. JMO, not as a mod, as a former hatchery customer.

 

[Cannoka]

The hatchery I use will only ship on Monday and Tuesday. Mine were shipped out on a Monday and were delivered the next day. Of course, where you are located in relation to where the hatchery is has a lot to do with delivery time.

 

[looptloop]

Aww, poor little chicks. I'm sorry for you too, this must be very upsetting. Hope the rest are all fine!

 

[innof8happinesses]

*Update* The remaining chicks are now doing great and even running about playing their little chick games. I think they should be good now. However, the hatchery is sending out a replacement order for the dead chicks to arrive after the wknd again... Likely I will get called Monday again. But I will call my post office to see if we can arrange a Sunday pick up. I don't want to see this stress happen again! It was so sad to see them suffer. And all so adorable.

 

[NottinghamChicks]

Good to hear! Hopefully they do a monday ship like most places. What were they thinking???

 

[daydreamer92]

I just got an order from McMurray on Monday as well, shipped on Sunday; out of 25 (probably 26 with an extra chick), 11 have died. They are doing what the OP described; were ok and now get listless, down on their hocks and then I find them dead. All bantams. I called to ask McMurray if they were having issues with bantams and she assured me this is out of the ordinary. The last order of bantams I got I lost all but 2 as well.

The "big chicks" are doing fine so far. No issues or listlessness at all.

 

[IMDeggman]

I bought a dozen chicks, newly hatched, from a store that just took delivery of them this morning. Out of 12 to start, 1 was dead by the time I got home about 9 hours later. No sign of injury or disease to my untrained eyes. But all looked good and active and feeding when I left them. I saw some yellow poop in the box I brought them home in, but did not think anything of it at the time, but I ran a across a reference to it somewhere in BYC. No telling who's the "poopetrator," such as the deceased. Let's hope for the best. What I have gathered from BYC so far is something about the yellow poop, and possible shipping stress/dehydration. I don't know if the chicks were without water for a couple days; have not checked with the retailer. Any thoughts?

 

[innof8happinesses]

Hi. Well we received a replacement order and one was dead upon arrival (silver polish). They looked very weak. Now things in CA were really cold and frigid this weekend and this may have been part of the problem. We have the perfect temp in a separate brooder from the first batch. We added antibiotics, electrolytes and some sugar from the get go with warm water as to not shock them. Still we lost 4 more today (auracana, silver polish, blue andalusian and leghorn). We are just so sad. It doesn't seem right to lose them like this. They were all eating and drinking and trying to live! But once they go down it is like they have pnemonia or something and cannot recover. I don't know. I didn't call the hatchery back because I am not even wanting a 3rd batch sent after all of this. We still don't know how many we may lose. I know people lost a few once in a while. But this has not been our experience in past orders (with the exception of the one year they had disease from the hatchery and nearly all died). That was a nationwide issue. This is different maybe?