- Sep 21, 2013
- 6
- 0
- 7
This might be long and hard to follow, but I want to give the full story. This spring/summer has been my first experience with chickens.
This spring was a really special day. I let the kids skip school and we woke up early to be the first at Tractor Supply on chick delivery day. Their shipment was cancelled for that week. We met a man there who raised chickens and had plenty of baby chicks for sale. When we got to his house, he had his garage filled with cages with hens in them. My gut told me that he didn't take good care of them and to go elsewhere. The kids were so excited and I figured that it was possibly the norm. We picked out four chicks, all different breeds.
A couple weeks later, one died. I'm not sure what happened, I checked on them and it was dead in the brooder. She was a little smaller than the others.
A few weeks later, the biggest of them all was laying on her back with her neck twisted. It reminded me of how they sometimes act while dust bathing. When I would put her on her feet, she would just roll back over. She had labored breathing and was scratching her underbelly and under her wings. She did not improve at all overnight so we culled her in the morning.
We got 2 more pullets and 4 more chicks from somewhere else. Three of the four chicks died within about a week or so of getting them. The other lasted about a month. All were just found dead.
Shortly after that, I noticed one of the original chicks (now nearly full grown) had clear snot coming out of her nostrils. I cleaned her off and separated her from the others. She never had anymore snot and no other symptoms.
Things were going really good with the original two that were left and the two pullets that I got later. Yesterday, our favorite hen seemed to be blind. She was tripping over sticks, walking into things, etc. She would wander a bit and then just stand there as if she was sleeping. She wouldn't open her eyes. I was able to get her to drink lots of water, but she wouldn't eat a single bite of anything. I tried yogurt, cabbage, scratch. She had no other symptoms and no injuries. She didn't make it through the night.
At this point, I'm wondering if there is something I brought home with the original four. I'm thinking I should cull the remaining three, disinfect, let the winter freeze kill anything that might be on the ground outside and try again in the spring.
One of them is a rooster, that I was planning on giving away (can't have roosters), but I couldn't give him away in good faith knowing he might possibly be a carrier of something.
As the chicks kept dying, I was blaming myself thinking I was doing something wrong. Now I'm wondering if the original four I got were infected with something and it passed to the rest that I brought home.
I feed organic feed, started with starter and switched to layer about 4 weeks ago. They have bowls of grit & oyster shells. They get plenty of produce scraps from us and sometimes scrambled eggs, cooked oatmeal & yogurt. The coop and run is kept clean. They free range for at least a couple hours everyday. If I have no where to go that day, they free range all day. Any thoughts of what this could be? Is culling the remaining 2 hens and 1 rooster the right thing to do?
I'm feeling like such a failure. We haven't even gotten our first egg yet.
This spring was a really special day. I let the kids skip school and we woke up early to be the first at Tractor Supply on chick delivery day. Their shipment was cancelled for that week. We met a man there who raised chickens and had plenty of baby chicks for sale. When we got to his house, he had his garage filled with cages with hens in them. My gut told me that he didn't take good care of them and to go elsewhere. The kids were so excited and I figured that it was possibly the norm. We picked out four chicks, all different breeds.
A couple weeks later, one died. I'm not sure what happened, I checked on them and it was dead in the brooder. She was a little smaller than the others.
A few weeks later, the biggest of them all was laying on her back with her neck twisted. It reminded me of how they sometimes act while dust bathing. When I would put her on her feet, she would just roll back over. She had labored breathing and was scratching her underbelly and under her wings. She did not improve at all overnight so we culled her in the morning.
We got 2 more pullets and 4 more chicks from somewhere else. Three of the four chicks died within about a week or so of getting them. The other lasted about a month. All were just found dead.
Shortly after that, I noticed one of the original chicks (now nearly full grown) had clear snot coming out of her nostrils. I cleaned her off and separated her from the others. She never had anymore snot and no other symptoms.
Things were going really good with the original two that were left and the two pullets that I got later. Yesterday, our favorite hen seemed to be blind. She was tripping over sticks, walking into things, etc. She would wander a bit and then just stand there as if she was sleeping. She wouldn't open her eyes. I was able to get her to drink lots of water, but she wouldn't eat a single bite of anything. I tried yogurt, cabbage, scratch. She had no other symptoms and no injuries. She didn't make it through the night.
At this point, I'm wondering if there is something I brought home with the original four. I'm thinking I should cull the remaining three, disinfect, let the winter freeze kill anything that might be on the ground outside and try again in the spring.
One of them is a rooster, that I was planning on giving away (can't have roosters), but I couldn't give him away in good faith knowing he might possibly be a carrier of something.
As the chicks kept dying, I was blaming myself thinking I was doing something wrong. Now I'm wondering if the original four I got were infected with something and it passed to the rest that I brought home.
I feed organic feed, started with starter and switched to layer about 4 weeks ago. They have bowls of grit & oyster shells. They get plenty of produce scraps from us and sometimes scrambled eggs, cooked oatmeal & yogurt. The coop and run is kept clean. They free range for at least a couple hours everyday. If I have no where to go that day, they free range all day. Any thoughts of what this could be? Is culling the remaining 2 hens and 1 rooster the right thing to do?
I'm feeling like such a failure. We haven't even gotten our first egg yet.
