Spontaneous Death

[agma]

Hello, I'm a new member on this site. My housemate and I got some baby chicks 2 weeks ago and this Sunday they turned 3 weeks old. We did everything needed to take care of them, but they yesterday they suddenly died. They had been fine all day, we checked them and nothing looked wrong with them, no cuts, no bloody droppings, they had water, food and enough heat. We had just been watching them too and they looked normal. Around 10 to 20 minutes passe when we checked on them and they were dead. Both of them were on opposite sides of their pen laying with their feet parallele to the ground. Does anybody know what could have happened?

 

[realsis]

Without any symptoms its very difficult to know. Sometimes coccidosis can be present WITHOUT bloody droppings however usually the chicks would be lethergic very sleepy and ruffled. I'm so very sorry for your losses. I wish I could be of more help. Maybe they had something wrong on the inside that you couldn't' see? Very strange but sometimes sadly it happens and we never really know why? Welcome to this site and again I'm very sorry for your loss. Were there bottoms clean? No pasty butt or anything like that?

 

[Eggcessive]

What kind of food were they on? Did they have a red heat lamp that was made for chicken brooding? Did you add anything to the water such as electrolytes? I'm sure you are at a loss to find out the cause. So sorry.

 

[agma]

Thank you. "realsis", they didn't have pasty buts, they looked really clean. "eggcessive", we don't know the kind of food they were on, the people who sold the chicks to us also sold us the food. We didn't add anything to the water though.
What is strange to me is that they both died at the same time. If they were sick of something I think they would have died separately or at least would have showed some signs?