One of our chick's died

[cms7352]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me with figuring out if I'm doing something wrong with our chicks.

We just had one die. Very sad! I had just looked in on them earlier today and everyone seemed fine. I checked his butt and it wasn't pasted up or anything. So far nobody else is looking bad but then again he looked really good before now.

We have a heat lamp on them and plenty of space to get away from it. Lots of fresh water and food. They were vaccinated before they came to us. We've had them for exactly a week.

I'm not sure if I should just check on them constantly or what?? I'd really appreciate it if someone could give me some insight into what might have happened or what I should do to prevent it from happening to another bird.

Thanks!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I'm so sorry your first post had to be such a sad one

You're doing good to re-check everything about your set-up, make sure it's clean & dry, draft-free, clean water & good food is provided, a heat source is keeping them comfortable. Is your bedding material non-toxic to chicks, not cedar?

If all the other chicks look all right, and this dead chick hasn't been the victim of violence, then it might be Just Stuff That Happens. It's the way of Mother Nature, more eggs are laid than need to hatch, more chicks hatch than need to grow. Often you can't tell who may not have enough of The Right Stuff until they just Cross The Road unexpectedly.

It's always good to keep checking on the chicks frequently, but even then you cannot prevent some of these losses. I wish you the best of success with all the rest of them!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

That has happened to me all the way up to three weeks old

(just a single chick for no reason dies).

I am sorry for your loss.

 

[cms7352]

So just a question... when you say violence do you mean that the chickens beat up on each other?? I just went in there when I heard a bunch of chirping and saw one chick had gotten a hold of a piece of paper and was being chased around the brooder by all the others. When I took the paper away they went back to acting normal. But I just wanted to know is that normal?? Should I worry about them chasing each other?



Thanks!!!

 

[Denninmi]

Quote:
That's perfectly normal and harmless behavior -- even adult chickens will play "keep away" with a tasty morsel or interesting scrap of random material until they ascertain it's not food.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

By violence I mean did the dead chick have any visable wounds, any pecked & bloody places. These little fuzzy innocents can be vicious towards each other. Sometimes they will peck at each other, and if they draw blood they'll all gang together & continue to peck at the wound, and can kill each other. I use this as an example to my kids about teasing & bullying. This usually happens in overcrowded conditions, or where one chick is much weaker than the others.

What you observed is a typical game of Chickie Keep-Away, and it rarely leads to violence, just a lot of amusement for the observer. They do this with all kinds of treats, stray bugs, etc. As long as they're not pecking at each other or drawing blood they should be okay, & don't need to be separated.

I mentioned the violence just to eliminate that cause of death in CSI:Brooder. If there had been an environmental cause it probably would be affecting all the chicks, if just one dies you want to figure out if there were contributing factors other than Failure To Thrive.

I hope that everyone else continues to do well. For fun, try giving them a piece of cooked spaghetti & watch them run around with that!

 

[cms7352]

That sounds really great! They were really cute... it was funny it was the easter egger vs the barred rocks. All the rhode island reds and austerlorps just looked at them like they were nuts. Haha.

 

[carrlr]

Quote:
It happens. Not always explainable. I'm curious though, are you using newspaper. If so, it can get slippery and cause injuries when they are little. I prefer paper towels to provide a little "traction". Although that's not cost effective if you have numerous babies.

 

[cms7352]

We're using pine shavings. We do have 25 chicks.

I'm thinking that the one who died just fell asleep in front of the heat lamp and then as my husband put it "everyone else moved out of the way and forgot to tell him." I've since removed the heat lamp and they all seem fine.

The temp in there right now is 85 degrees and nobody is huddled together etc. They've been ok with the temp since last night. Its funny cause the one bird I was really worried about is just fine. He's like half the size of the other easter eggers but hasn't had any problems so far.

It was such a shock to see one dead because we've had such an easy time with them up until we lost that one. And he seemed so healthy.

 

[blueid10]

Quote:
It happens. Not always explainable. I'm curious though, are you using newspaper. If so, it can get slippery and cause injuries when they are little. I prefer paper towels to provide a little "traction". Although that's not cost effective if you have numerous babies.

Actually we tried both of those, I think it worked even better when we used PINE SHAVINGS (not cedar, it's poisonous if eaten), it had even better traction if there was a layer about two inches thick, and absorbed everything. It stayed really clean and they injoyed scraching around in it, thus stirring it up and keeping it even cleaner!