Sad tale of Tiny II

[MomFoldingLaundry]

So Last night, our outdoor power went out because of the rain, and the brooder lamp turned off for my chicks that are about 2 weeks old.

It only really gets down to 70 degrees at night here in Hawaii. And I thought they would all be okay. I plugged the lamp back in in the morning.

But my little runt took a turn for the worse, and just got weaker all day until he died. At one point, I checked his wings to see his degree of feathering, and...he seemed kind of frail. He was already like 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the others, and had been born last. So I’m sure he didnt have the ability to maintain body heat as well as the others.

My question is this: do you guys feel this was a chick that probably wouldn’t have made it anyway? Like, a “failure to thrive” situation?

I just feel so guilty about the heat.

 

[sourland]

Don't beat yourself up over something that you could not control. To me it sounds as if this bird had a congenital problem that would have caused early death without the power outage.

 

[Nabiki]

Your little runt was probably destined to fail, I'm afraid. It's unlikely the temperature was the reason, especially if it was only down into the 70s.