Scratching My Head ?

[SouthernFried21]

After much deliberation and research, my daughter and I decided to purchase 6 marans... We decided to keep them inside at a controlled temp for 6-8 weeks after bringing them home (they were 3 days old), within 5 days, we found 1 dead. I called the breeder and asked if we had inadvertantly done something to cause this...she assured me that no, we had done everything correctly. At 3 weeks, we lost the second one...no warning, nothing..at 10 weeks, we moved them into their coop which was at the end of June, during warm weather. The remaining 3 seemed to thrive. Unexpectedly, we lost number this past week, again no warning..no signs of sickness...and number 5 was found dead this morning....my question is, are they so specialized that they cannot be raised in a small brood or is there something genetically wrong with the batch? We have other chickens that are doing well, no problems at all. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Kevin565]

Could your daughter accidentally be hurting them? Any other pets?

 

[jbirds2012]

sorry for your loss, i have no idea what it could be, predator maybe ? i hope you can figure out the mystery soon

 

[sumi]

Hello and welcome to BYC

Can you give us a bit more details? Feed, brooder space etc.

 

[SouthernFried21]

Feed was started with a basic organic Chick feed that we ordered thru our local feed store. We have just added layer's mash (also organic) 3 parts chick feed, 1 part mash in the past 2-3 weeks. As a precauion (which was given by our local farmers), we added electrolytes to their water when the mash was started. We have a large coop (laying boxes & house) are 20'x20' with a run 30'x15'x6' and a smaller coop for the younger chicks which is 3'x3' coop with a 10'x3' run. Each one is enclosed with small mesh wire, so I don't think a large predator could get to them, not sure if anything much larger than a mouse could actually get in. When we checked them, we found no obvious signs of trauma. We did note that their crops were a bit smaller than normal, so I'm wondering if they were sick with no obvious signs?

 

[SouthernFried21]

No, she's very gentle with each of them, they're really more like pets than farm animals. She's old enough to be very responsible with each of them. No pets, we live in a very rural area tho and wild animals are present at times.

 

[redsoxs]

Greetings from Kansas, SouthernFried21, and

! Happy you joined us! That is a head scratcher, no doubt. It is rough to lose chickens under any circumstances but under mysterious circumstances it is particularly frustrating. It almost sounds like you bought them with something wrong with them. Did you post over in the Emergencies & Diseases section? Might be able to get more precise advice there. In any event, sorry to hear about your loss and I hope you find out the cause. Best wishes.

 

[Red Barn Farms]

Hi, welcome to BYC from Kentucky.

 

[weimarmama]

& from Alabama. Glad you joined us.

 

[Judy]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/39604/some-causes-of-early-chick-mortality

I'm sorry, and I agree, this is puzzling. I almost wonder if there was a genetic problem. the link above is to a rather lengthy article which does give a pretty good overview of the kinds of things that can go wrong.