Sad Day

[TheYoungV]

Hi everyone. I'm new here. I've been lurking for a couple of weeks now and finally decided to create my own account. We have, or had, 10 baby chicks until today. We're new to chickens, and bought 10 beautiful baby chicks from a farm near by last Wednesday. We got 2 cream crested legbar pullets, 3 cochins, 3 brahma bantams, 1 splash maran and one black copper maran. We are in love with all of them and handle them every day. They are used to us and follow us around the kitchen. We have been over the moon with them.

Today, one of our cream crested legbars suddenly fell ill. She was just fine yesterday, but today she was lying in the corner very weak. We looked up info on here and found that it wasn't looking good. We tried to give her some starter mixed with water, and some sugar water as per instructions we read on here. But she died within an hour. I am heartbroken! I feel like we did something wrong, but I don't know what. We read that sometimes this just happens. But I wasn't expecting it because she was fine and showed no signs of any illness. They were 1 week old as of yesterday, and I thought since they were all thriving, we probably wouldn't lose any. I want to call the woman we bought them from to let her know what happened, but my husband says not to bother. While we were there, she did say she had no guarantees and that some of them might not make it. My husband says this was her way of saying not to bother calling if we had any issues. Would a good breeder not want to know, and maybe offer to replace the chick?? We paid more for the creamies than we did for the others... But more than the money, I feel like we lost a part of our family. I am heartbroken. I can't bear to lose any more.


This was our beautiful little girl.




Snuggling up! You can see her looking at the camera.



That was her in the top left pic on the right.

 

[N F C]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

I'm so sorry you lost one of your new chicks. Unfortunately, sometimes they just can't make it for some reason. Chicks are so small, it doesn't take long at all for them to be wiped out, they just don't have the strength to fight things off and keep going.

Since your breeder said no refunds, there shouldn't be any expectation of one. If your chick was obviously ill, I would think a good breeder would want to know about it in case some of her stock is unwell. But if your girl just passed due to failure to thrive, the breeder can't do anything about that.

Cream Crested Legbars are beautiful birds and their eggs are gorgeous. I'm glad you still have the other 1.

Good luck to you and I hope you're enjoying your new flock.

 

[hbchicknmama]

It is tough to go through. We lost 2 chicks we bought at a local feed store. Both were fine the suddenly super weak and it was downhill quickly. I'm sorry you lost that beautiful chick.

 

[MountainOrchard]

I'm so sorry! I lost one of my EE chicks last year at only a few days old. No obvious reason why she died either. It's heartbreaking and you wish you could have done something.

 

[song of joy]

I'm sorry for your loss. About a week ago, one of my RIR chicks was looking very weak. I picked it up and it died in my hand. That was very hard to take. The flock seemed fine, but I lost another chicks 3 days later, very suddenly. The only symptom seemed to be that the chick stood with its head a little bit down and wings a bit droopy.

I treated the flock for coccidiosis and they are now doing fine. No further losses. Watch carefully for any subtle signs of lethargy. If your flock shows signs of coccidiosis, Corid works great.

 

[bigbruce]

So sorry but unfortunately it does happen with baby chicks.I am a breeder and always try to help my customers however it is hard to guarantee chicks because some people just don't care for them as well as it sounds like you do.

 

[16 paws]

What do you use for heat? Could the chicks be cold? Looks like in the picture they are huddled up to get warm. Just trying to think of anything to help you. I am very sorry for your loss.