We ordered 75 chicks from the hatchery. They are 4 days old. So far, 12 have died (8 died one night and 4 so far today). We have an enclosed brood room. They will not come out of one end of the brooder. We have a brood light on them but they are all huddled together. We have an A/C in there but it is set to only come on if the temp. reaches 80 degrees. I just saw one of them go drink water and then it died. What is going on? We have raised over 250 chicks from the hatchery and nothing like this has happened. The only thing different with this batch is that we didn't feed them medicated feed like we have all of the others. We have just been feeding them chick-grow-lay. Could that be it? I've talked to other people who never feed their chicks medicated feed. Could something be scaring them? Could the mineral oil be the problem?
****** Update on this. They have had a brood light on them. Temp. is reading 95 degrees. The brooders are galvanized stock tanks. Plenty big. The chicks even have a separate stock tank without a brood lite to run to if they get too warm. Spoke to the hatchery. They believe that the chickens are dieing due to stress from transport. This is Texas y'all and it has been extremely hot. The transport trucks are not air conditioned. The hatchery has no control over what happens once they leave their facility. The chicks could have been left out in the heat or put by an a/c at the post office - who knows. The count of deceased chicks so far is 25. The hatchery is going to replace them although they are not required to do so. They suggested putting electrolytes/vitamins in water which I did today. Since then the body count has slowed down. Also, they have been on medicated feed since yesterday, but the hatchery doesn't think that would have made a difference. 25 of the chicks were RIR's and 50 were Dominiques. loss on the RIR's has been significantly less than on the Dominiques. The RIR's appear to be a bit older and they clearly have more down on them and are bigger. The Dominiques are much smaller. I think they held the RIR's until the Dominiques hatched and then shipped them. The Dominiques were too young at shipment to handle the heat. They were overheated when they got here and their little bodies couldn't regulate the temp. Only God knows what really went on but at least it looks like some will survive.
****** Update on this. They have had a brood light on them. Temp. is reading 95 degrees. The brooders are galvanized stock tanks. Plenty big. The chicks even have a separate stock tank without a brood lite to run to if they get too warm. Spoke to the hatchery. They believe that the chickens are dieing due to stress from transport. This is Texas y'all and it has been extremely hot. The transport trucks are not air conditioned. The hatchery has no control over what happens once they leave their facility. The chicks could have been left out in the heat or put by an a/c at the post office - who knows. The count of deceased chicks so far is 25. The hatchery is going to replace them although they are not required to do so. They suggested putting electrolytes/vitamins in water which I did today. Since then the body count has slowed down. Also, they have been on medicated feed since yesterday, but the hatchery doesn't think that would have made a difference. 25 of the chicks were RIR's and 50 were Dominiques. loss on the RIR's has been significantly less than on the Dominiques. The RIR's appear to be a bit older and they clearly have more down on them and are bigger. The Dominiques are much smaller. I think they held the RIR's until the Dominiques hatched and then shipped them. The Dominiques were too young at shipment to handle the heat. They were overheated when they got here and their little bodies couldn't regulate the temp. Only God knows what really went on but at least it looks like some will survive.
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