prplehailstorm
In the Brooder
- May 13, 2020
- 26
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Advice on sudden death of pullets
Today we had two chickens suddenly pass away. We have a small flock so that is pretty devastating. They were about 7 months old. Laying for a few months. We live in California so our area is not only experiencing a heat wave but the air quality is horrible from the fires and we assume this is what did our ladies in despite our best efforts to keep them cool. however, I did have other concerns.
Around a month and a half ago we got two 10 week old chicks. We did the quarantine. When we put them together I was told to put the whole flock on grower feed because it wouldn’t hurt the older girls and the younger ones weren’t ready for layer feed. After that the older girls all but stopped laying. We have our Easter Eggers stop laying completely, one girl’s eggs changed from brown to cream colored, and only every other day we would get one normal egg. We had 5 layers and averaged 1-2 eggs a day. After the bag of grower feed was done and the young ones being about 15-16 weeks of age I decided to switch back to layer to try and get my girls back on track.
I guess I’m just wondering if I did everything right. Was there an error that I could have made that caused them to die? Maybe switching the food wasn’t healthy for the older ones? Any advice would be great. We plan on bringing all the girls in tomorrow but I want to cover my bases in case there is a possibility of giving the wrong food or maybe a disease or maybe other common cause this could be.
Today we had two chickens suddenly pass away. We have a small flock so that is pretty devastating. They were about 7 months old. Laying for a few months. We live in California so our area is not only experiencing a heat wave but the air quality is horrible from the fires and we assume this is what did our ladies in despite our best efforts to keep them cool. however, I did have other concerns.
Around a month and a half ago we got two 10 week old chicks. We did the quarantine. When we put them together I was told to put the whole flock on grower feed because it wouldn’t hurt the older girls and the younger ones weren’t ready for layer feed. After that the older girls all but stopped laying. We have our Easter Eggers stop laying completely, one girl’s eggs changed from brown to cream colored, and only every other day we would get one normal egg. We had 5 layers and averaged 1-2 eggs a day. After the bag of grower feed was done and the young ones being about 15-16 weeks of age I decided to switch back to layer to try and get my girls back on track.
I guess I’m just wondering if I did everything right. Was there an error that I could have made that caused them to die? Maybe switching the food wasn’t healthy for the older ones? Any advice would be great. We plan on bringing all the girls in tomorrow but I want to cover my bases in case there is a possibility of giving the wrong food or maybe a disease or maybe other common cause this could be.