Sudden deaths??

[Stoks]

Hi there. Please help! Yesterday and most of today we had 9 out of 10 chicks hatch. They were moving around and doing great. All of a sudden tonight they started flipping over on their backs and breathing hard. Within 10-15 min. 7 of them were dead. Including one that was in the incubator still. We moved the 2 that were still doing OK to a new tub and the stronger one died about an hour later. We are down to 1 Chick. So sad and it has never happened before. Any ideas what happened?

 

[MsPonderosa]

No expert here, but with multiple birds affected so quickly and at such a young age, i would rule out toxin exposure.

congenital issues should not affect so many equally.

infectious causes i would say less likely because most disease have an incubation period and there will be different progression in individual birds.

environment could be a factor if all chicks were too hot or too cold, did not take to feed/water etc.

chicks also eat their substrate/bedding so be sure nothing potentially toxic there.

i would replace the food/water containers with new, new everything to eliminate toxin/environmental issue.

i hope your remaining chick does well
Best of luck

 

[Farmingmum91]

There’s not much else I can add that ms ponderosa hasn’t already said.
I would sterilise you’re incubator after all the chicks have gone. But normally you’d clear out each egg after each hatching just to clear things and make sure an infected egg don’t then infect another one x