Store selling sick chicks?

[CrazyChickens09]

I bought two batches of chickens(total of 6 chicks) from a local feed store and out of those two batches half the chicks were sick and had to be euthanized..my question is this normal chick mortality or is the place that the store gets their chicks selling bad chicks? The three remaining chicks do alot of head shaking but appear to be healthy (the vets seems to think crd..pending necrospy? results)TIA

 

[mandelyn]

It's hard to always get healthy animals when dealing with a middleman. It's like buying a puppy from a petstore, more often than not it'll come home with kennel cough at the least.

At breeders/hatcheries biosecurity is in effect, where as at the store, people come in all the time and want to pet/hold/touch the chicks. Where have they been and do they have chickens and what all was passed around? Or where did the chicks come from? Did the store clean the brooders from the last batch?

That isn't normal mortality regardless of the cause, but the more times chicks change hands, the more likely it is they can become ill.

The safest way to buy is from the egg straight to you, either from a hatchery or from your own incubator or that of a breeder.

Unless the local store is VERY reliable and has a good reputation. But the people who work in the store, are not going to be chicken experts until they've delt with them AND their potential issues often enough to gain experience. Alert the store to the chicks being ill.

 

[Sillystunt]

That is not normal! I have gotten chicks from stores and they did not drop like that. have you contacted them?

 

[LaSombra]

Out of 13 store-bought chicks, I only had 1 of them die within a few days of purchase... (the one my 6 year old over-handled) so I don't think that sounds like a good mortality rate there.

 

[speckledhen]

Where does the feedstore get their chicks, hatchery or local? They can have just about anything, and alot depends on how well they disinfect the brooder the chicks are put into. I'm betting very few feedstore personnel know squat about how easy it is to spread disease with chickens if they don't pay attention to cleanliness.