TSC bedding poisoned chicks

[Happy hen lover]

Man I'm SO sorry to have raised them up so far then have that kill them! Thanks for sharing with us all to pass this on.

 

[SheaLoner]

Did you contact your TSC? Sometimes there is a great manager who will reimburse you for this and may replace your chicks.

 

[aart]

Please consider editing your title to "coffee ground bedding"

I couldn't agree more.
@chickawhat if you can't edit the title yourself, you can click 'report' on your first post and ask a mod to do it.

 

[sdm111]

I’m going to send in a few chicks a sample of their feed & a sample of the bedding to Texas A&M for necropsy. I’m not letting this go. I was totally attacked of FB by people swearing it was lack of heat or cocci etc. It’s overwhelmingly frustrating & heartbreaking to see chicks die like that. this company needs to be held accountable.

Maybe this should be done first to verify it was the actual bedding that caused the deaths before slamming them. Now if it did in fact kill them then that's fine but to assume, no good

 

[Ascholten]

ALERT:

Ok I am not a chicken expert, but am somewhat of a coffee guy. Ive been selling coffee online for close to 10 years, and brewing, all sorts of stuff for close to 20 years.

With that being said.
When you brew coffee, you do NOT take all of the caffeine out of it ! There is still some in the grounds yet.

Now, starbucks and the likes, are NOT going to rebrew coffee! They brew it once, it gets thrown into their rainbows and unicorn fart bin and sold to the next schmuck who is going to pay 10 for a pail of coffee grounds. Maybe yours gives the grounds to you, either way, they STILL have Caffeine in them !

(Ok now I can see the smart ass chiming in, 'but what if they used decaf grounds?')

Go ahead play games see what happens. It's YOUR dead flock.

At best, they probably dry these grounds out and then 'transfer custody' over to whomever..who then bags them and sells them to YOU.

THEY STILL HAVE CAFFEINE IN THEM !!

Another thing to consider is, coffee has Theobromines in it, which is toxic to birds.
(Disclaimer: There is still a lot of debate on how much is in roasted coffee, and of course this will vary widely with the coffee and roast method) but for the sake of this topic, there is a potential it is there. Even if not, there is STILL CAFFEINE in the coffee.

Caffeine is NOT good for birds. Chicks are possibly more susceptible to it's affects.

Lets try some simple math.
A pot of coffee takes roughly 60g of coffee grounds to make.
A pot of coffee will totally wire a 200 pound fat ass such as myself.

This means 6 grams will wire a 20 pound fatass
This means 3 grams will wire a 10 pound fatass (HUGE CHICKEN)

Lets just assume that half the caffeine been leeched out of this coffee because it was used once already.

This means 3 grams will wire a 5 pound fat ass (Most normal chickens) give or take a lb or two. Your baby chick weighs what? A full pound now?

here is what 3 g of coffee looks like:

As you can see, it does NOT take a heck of a lot of coffee grounds to equal up to 3 g.

NOW: How much of this do you think your girl may ingest, when poking around for bugs? When scratching around for gizzard grits? May be stuck to food or mixed with food that happens to make it's way there? Eats straight up because coffee smells / potentially taste good to her?

How much DIRT do you think they eat every day just picking up bugs and goobers out of the ground? With that--- how easy do you think it would be for them to eat this much coffee grounds, whether purposely or accidentally? ---- A tablespoon full??

Again, I am not a chicken expert, I just present this as food for thought.

Thank you
Aaron

 

[sdm111]

I'd still like to see the varified connection between the posters birds dying from what they said. I'm not saying grounds are good or bad I'm saying have proof before talking badly from an assumption.

 

[Ascholten]

I'd still like to see the varified connection between the posters birds dying from what they said. I'm not saying grounds are good or bad I'm saying have proof before talking badly from an assumption.

I agree, lets get some data here and honest results, not just hearsay, hysteria, and blind ignorance..

I do know that once used grounds still have caffeine in them, I have tested them before a few years ago, a 'curiosity' project. The reason was waaaaay off the wall, bunch of squids talking about the horrible navy coffee but, it was tested, and twice brewed coffee DID have significant caffeine still in it.

All I am saying is, 'recycled' grounds can still have caffeine in them, that substance is NOT good for birds, and young may be more susceptible due to their small size / less needed to twang them. Also, the possibility of the birds eating some, for whatever reason, is extremely high as well.

They make test strips, I have a few, but basically they say, it has caffeine, it don't have caffeine, so are not very helpful for quantities. Let me reach out to a colleague and see if he has any equipment in his balliwick of gadgets that we could actually possibly measure how MUCH was in stuff, and I can get some of these grounds and test them.
NOT promising this will happen, but I'll put feelers out and see what tickles my toenails..

aaron

 

[trudyg]

I wonder if they're not eating the fine shavings? Wouldn't be poison, but surely would be harmful. Maybe remove them from it or top it off with something bigger, like maybe wheat straw?

 

[JennyHeidewald]

I am so very sorry for your loss, how heartbreaking! I am glad you are getting a necropsy done to find out what it for sure was, the more info we get the better armed we are to decide what to use for our flocks. I knew there is some caffeine left in it (good info above by , which is what I worried about before I started using it -> I've been using coffee grounds from a coffee shop for maybe 2 years, raised chicks on it with a broody last year no problems. I have never raised them on it without a broody, and maybe that is why they are all ok, I figure she teaches them what to eat. BUT I've seen chicks try to eat pine shavings when young, so I am sure they'd try grounds at least once.
Once again, I am so sorry, please update us with the results.

 

[GabrielBernard]

Maybe coffee grounds are not a problem for adult chicken, but babies...and it has natural pest repelling abilities...
This means, coffein and similiar stuff, because the plant puts it in there to repell pests.
Caffein poisoning is high heart/breathing rate.
Not wanting to eat because you feel nauseous, vomiting, diarhea, not drinking/being dehydrated and at last, collaps and death.

I am pretty sure it is caffein(and related stuff) poisoning.
The problem is, caffein can be absorbed through the skin, and chicks have very thin skin.

They would not even need to eat it to be poisoned by it.
And having an empty crop points to that, because you become nauseous from too much caffein and will not eat.

0.05-0.1OZ ground coffee can kill a 450g-5 pound cat/dog.
And I found this for birds:
As described by VCA Hospitals, seizures are sometimes caused by toxic events. Caffeine is a common trigger. As the toxicity progresses, the parrot’s episodes become worse and more frequent.

When a parrot has a seizure, it will begin with a period of altered behavior called the aura phase.

The second phase is called the ictus. During which, the parrot loses its basic muscle functions, becoming stiff with the occasional spasm. Sometimes, the parrot loses its grip and falls to the bottom of the cage. It may soil itself. This stage only lasts 5-20 seconds.

The final stage can last for several hours and involves lethargy, exhaustion, disorientation, confusion, and restlessness.