Normal Chick Beahavior?

[cluckcluckgirl]

This evening, a chick passed away. She was shipped just a couple days ago, and seemed to be acting fine until tonight. She was acting very slow and not seeming to want to move much. She had eaten food and drank water, but when I tried to put a cap with some water near her beak, she started shaking her head and putting up a fight. She died soon after, but my question is: Is the cause of her death likely stress from the shipment?

 

[centrarchid]

Could be anything including shipment stress. If you were to ship 1,000 otherwise healthy chicks at time of leaving source, then you would expect to loos a few shortly after receipt because of chick infirmities.

Still, be on your toes watching for trouble with other chicks.

 

[cluckcluckgirl]

Another chick just passed the same way, only it seemed to not come on so suddenly with her. What is this that is killing them now? The two that have died have only showed the symptoms of sleeping often and low energy.

 

[centrarchid]

Go out and get a fresh bag of feed, medicated if possible. I would go now. Discard old feed. Clean out brooder and replaced bedding. Clean waterer thoroughly then refill. With small chicks you do not have time to run through a diagnostic process that takes days.

 

[cluckcluckgirl]

Thanks you. I will replace the bedding and water now. Yesterday I ran out and got them some fresh medicated food.

The two chicks that died also didn't show any interest in eating, and mild interest in drinking. Could this be Colibacillosis?

 

[centrarchid]

I am not knowingly experienced with Colibacillosis, although very experienced with Cocciodosis where the medicated feed I use comes in. The fresh feed will be a defense against poor vitamin quality most likely associated with out of date feed or poor storage. Formulations usually pretty good at time they are milled.


Looks like the pathogen involved with Colibacillosis has already developed immunity to most of the antibiotics you can get without a prescription. Terramycin derivatives and sulfa drugs might be helpfull (see below).

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/poultry/colibacillosis/overview_of_colibacillosis_in_poultry.html


Work to minimize stress on remaining chicks. If a chick becomes symptomatic then isolate it from the rest.

 

[Blooie]

I think I'd be looking for the obvious first. What's the temp of the brooder? Heat lamp or heating pad? Is the entire brooder warm or is there a nice cool spot they can get to? Chicks don't do well when they overheat...they get quiet, lethargic, and can indeed die. I know that the books all say if the chicks are spread out with their wings spread and they are panting, they are too warm, and that's very true. But they don't always do that. Sometimes they just start to fade away when they are too hot. Conversely stressed out new chicks don't always give the accepted indicators that they are chilled, either, although that's more likely to be true. Are they piling up?

After you've made sure that they are safe temperature wise, then I think I'd pick up some Nutri-drench. It's the one "treatment" that I always have on hand since I'm not qualified to diagnose and administer meds to my chicks. Nutri-drench goes directly into the blood stream, bypassing the lengthier digestive-then-into-the-bloodstream route and can give stressed out and weak chicks a real boost, real fast. If that's not available then a little sugar water can help. Every chick that arrives here gets a dose of Nutri-drench first thing. I've still lost a couple of chicks if the stress was just too hard on them, but they may well have had underlying issues not apparent at hatch, and hatcheries sending out thousands of chicks a day don't always take the time time to look each one over before putting them into the boxes.

Good luck! Keep us posted. Most of us have lost chicks at one time or another, and no matter how long we've been at this we hate it as much the last time as we did the first!

 

[cluckcluckgirl]

The brooder is in the early 90s as far as temp goes, with a heat lamp. The brooder itself is fairly large, so there is an area of it that is definitely cooler. They haven't panted and they don't pile up, they just roam wherever they want to in the brooder.

They have Nutri-drench in their water as well. Some chicks appear normal (as of yet), but we have had the two die and one appears to be on her way out and has since been removed from the others. This is our first time with shipped chicks, as we usually buy them ourselves from a ranch store and haven't encountered anything like this in our almost 6 years of raising chickens.

 

[centrarchid]

Thermal gradient on brooder allows detection heat related behavior. How do chicks sound? I listen for more cheaping with discomfortment. I do water with water without nutrients added.

Three or four days sufficient time for problems to develop in your end.

 

[Blooie]

Great job on the answers! Just the added information needed to see if we can't be of more help. Sounds like you have everything covered as far as temp and Nutri-drench goes, so that's good!

Now we just have to get our collective heads together and see if we can solve the mystery before any more are lost.......can you think of anything other factor aside from being shipped? I know shipping is hard on them and problems from it can show up days after they are received. Have you notified the hatchery that you are losing chicks? They often offer a refund on chicks that die shortly after being received. A refund doesn't resolve your issues but it does alert the hatchery.

Thinking.....thinking......