Terrible, awful day. Almost all of my chickens dead. ***Update***

[cyanne]

I'm being reminded in a big way way why I do most of my animal care myself and avoid using the vet. I spoke to A&M on Monday morning, was told that my bill for them so far was $30 and that it was a waste of time to spend hundreds more testing the feed. So I said, fine, no more tests. I then found a lab willing to do the tests for free.

Then I get a call from MY vet today saying they have test results back on my feed. Huh? What tests? Well, apparently my vet called A&M AFTER I talked with them and ordered more tests without asking me. I talked to my vet about it, explaining that I had told them NOT to test. He said the Vet from A&M didn't tell him that I talked to them. And my bill was now $122.

I called A&M to ask them what was going on and they said that MY vet ordered the tests and that I did not have the authority to stop testing since the bird was sent in on the vet's account.

Now my options are just bending over and paying the bill, or starting a fight with the only vet clinic near me that treats large animals. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

On an up side, I did at least rule out 2 possible causes, salt content and aflatoxin. Those were the two tests they ran after I told them to stop testing.

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
Cyanne,
so sorry to hear about your experience.

Sorry about the frustration with A&M. There are good vets involved with their testing facilities, sadly you got one that didn't care about chickens as pets. I think a lot of A&M's focus is 'bottom line' and the big growers who have thousands of chickens for meat --and thus to these folks they are very much 'just chickens'.

I did have a quite long discussion on the phone with a vet from the new Gonzales testing facility, and he was very helpful and sympathetic to my concerns, and to come to the phone he actually had to be interrupted from a necropsy.

That said, sometimes even the best and most caring vet could come up with a blank, and the one you got didn't even want to go very far down the path of discovery.

Maybe talk to your large animal vet if the cost of testing is a real hardship and split the difference or get some credit for future animal visits.

Hopefully nothng like this will ever happen again.

 

[1livelychick]

So, so sorry for your loss.

My former neighbors Jack Russell chewed a hole through my pen and just killed most of my fancy kids a couple years ago. It was terrible...bodies just lying all over the place some of them without a scratch. So, I know that painful and terrible feeling. God Bless!

 

[hallerlake]

Quote:
That's just adding insult to injury.

 

[flowerchild59]

I would contact the feed company myself and expect some answers.

 

[DesertChickLover]

First: I am so sorry for your loss.

One dead bird is bad enough, and I can't IMAGINE how you and your husband are feeling. I hope that you and your flock will recover soon.

Second: UGH! The whole sitution with testing the feed sounds unbearably frustrating! Hopefully you, your vet, and the people at A&M can get things sorted out, preferably in your favor. I would absolutely want some compensation from the people who are giving you a hard time.

But whatever happens, I know you'll make it through.

 

[lieselanne]

Oh my gosh! What a terrible story! I'm so sorry for you and your husband. Please let us know if anything else develops. Although it's terrible what's happened, it's even worse not knowing what would have caused such a huge trauma. Scary! But you've come to the right place for support. Hope you feel better soon!

 

[jerseygirl1]

Well, I only read some of this post - not all - and I am sorry for your losses
I say it's a combination of them not wanting to put in the time and $$ to find out what happened on their dime, and a sense of 'not my problem' OR not a big issue so let's just blame it on the heat
Either way, I would stay away from that company

 

[Ilovemyladies!]

I'm so sorry to hear that

I hope you find out the cause soon!

 

[StevieNacole]

So sad.

I'm so sorry. Goodluck figuring out what happened! You deserve to know!