Crossposting this to the chicks sub forum as I suspect I may get more help here.
I’ve raised nearly 2 hundred chicks, including 6 guinea fowl I picked up as keets at the feed store and a couple batches of chicks I’ve incubated from eggs from my chicken flock. I’ve brooded them all similarly, and had pretty good success, I may have lost 5 overall before this.
My brooder setup is a couple of heat lamps, one low, one higher, allowing for concentrated heat if the birds get cool as well as less concentrated heat for if they just want a bit of extra warmth, and plenty of room for them to escape the heat overall. I use a slightly elevated sheet pan with a wire mesh rack over it to keep shavings out of the waterer, and offer either unmedicated chick starter or 20% protein all flock crumbles. I’ve used both large pine shavings and the shredded aspen fiber bedding with success. I currently have a “maternity ward” coop with 3 hens raising their own clutches of chicks that are using the aspen fiber bedding.
My neighbor gave me a clutch of guinea eggs and I incubated them, after all of the pipped eggs had hatched(10 total) and the keets were dry, I transferred them to one of my mobile coops that I had cleared out, pressure washed, and set up in brooder mode, as described above. I scrubbed out the waterer that I’ve been using as a secondary in my maternity ward coop, and filled it with filtered water and a little bit of poultry nutrient-drench to help with stress. I rinsed out the feeder and filled it from the same bag of all flock crumbles that my mama hens and chicks have been eating from for weeks. The brooder’s bedding was the aspen fiber. The brooder is parked under a recently built lean-to structure next to our farm shop building. When I transferred the keets to the brooder, like with every chick I get, as I moved each one into the brooder, I dipped their beaks in the water so they’d know where it was, and the food was right next to it.
The keets hatched over the weekend and on Friday, the first keet died. Weird? But it was a one off, so I was bummed but moved on. The next morning, 2 more were dead. I lowered the “hot” light a little bit as my thermometer logged that it was getting down to 95 degrees at night and maybe they were cold(this didn’t seem likely as they had been fine til then, but it was my only guess)? Dead keets were kind of scattered around, no rhyme or reason to their locations, they were mostly sprawled out on their tummies. No apparent injuries or trauma. By Saturday afternoon 5 more had died and on Sunday morning the final two were dead.
I’m obviously upset, and confused. I’ve brooded guineas before with a pile of chicks and they thrived. I’m not sure what caused the losses, but I have a few hundred dollars worth of chicks arriving this week and I want to make sure I don’t have a repeat, so I would love some theories as to what caused this. Right now my best guess is that they decided to eat the aspen fiber shavings? Coccidiosis doesn’t seem likely as I never saw any weird or wet poop. No pasty butts.
I removed all of the bedding and blew the brooder out, I took the waterer and feeder and tray out and ran them through my dishwasher just in case. I’m planning to grab pine shavings tomorrow as they’re a bit harder to eat than the aspen fibers.
I’ve raised nearly 2 hundred chicks, including 6 guinea fowl I picked up as keets at the feed store and a couple batches of chicks I’ve incubated from eggs from my chicken flock. I’ve brooded them all similarly, and had pretty good success, I may have lost 5 overall before this.
My brooder setup is a couple of heat lamps, one low, one higher, allowing for concentrated heat if the birds get cool as well as less concentrated heat for if they just want a bit of extra warmth, and plenty of room for them to escape the heat overall. I use a slightly elevated sheet pan with a wire mesh rack over it to keep shavings out of the waterer, and offer either unmedicated chick starter or 20% protein all flock crumbles. I’ve used both large pine shavings and the shredded aspen fiber bedding with success. I currently have a “maternity ward” coop with 3 hens raising their own clutches of chicks that are using the aspen fiber bedding.
My neighbor gave me a clutch of guinea eggs and I incubated them, after all of the pipped eggs had hatched(10 total) and the keets were dry, I transferred them to one of my mobile coops that I had cleared out, pressure washed, and set up in brooder mode, as described above. I scrubbed out the waterer that I’ve been using as a secondary in my maternity ward coop, and filled it with filtered water and a little bit of poultry nutrient-drench to help with stress. I rinsed out the feeder and filled it from the same bag of all flock crumbles that my mama hens and chicks have been eating from for weeks. The brooder’s bedding was the aspen fiber. The brooder is parked under a recently built lean-to structure next to our farm shop building. When I transferred the keets to the brooder, like with every chick I get, as I moved each one into the brooder, I dipped their beaks in the water so they’d know where it was, and the food was right next to it.
The keets hatched over the weekend and on Friday, the first keet died. Weird? But it was a one off, so I was bummed but moved on. The next morning, 2 more were dead. I lowered the “hot” light a little bit as my thermometer logged that it was getting down to 95 degrees at night and maybe they were cold(this didn’t seem likely as they had been fine til then, but it was my only guess)? Dead keets were kind of scattered around, no rhyme or reason to their locations, they were mostly sprawled out on their tummies. No apparent injuries or trauma. By Saturday afternoon 5 more had died and on Sunday morning the final two were dead.
I’m obviously upset, and confused. I’ve brooded guineas before with a pile of chicks and they thrived. I’m not sure what caused the losses, but I have a few hundred dollars worth of chicks arriving this week and I want to make sure I don’t have a repeat, so I would love some theories as to what caused this. Right now my best guess is that they decided to eat the aspen fiber shavings? Coccidiosis doesn’t seem likely as I never saw any weird or wet poop. No pasty butts.
I removed all of the bedding and blew the brooder out, I took the waterer and feeder and tray out and ran them through my dishwasher just in case. I’m planning to grab pine shavings tomorrow as they’re a bit harder to eat than the aspen fibers.
