Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[MargaretYakoda]

I'm so mad!

I sold some day old chicks to a lady that I hatched myself and saw her yesterday. She told me some of those chicks are no good. When I asked her what she was talking about because I know they were all healthy when I gave them to her she said some died. I asked her why and she said one had poop stuck to its butt, some "just died" and the other ones drowned in the water dish. Out of 11 she killed off 7! She gave the rest to her neighbor THANK GOD! They were for her husband and he left town. She apparently thought the heat lamp would burn her garage down so she unplugged it and put a blanket in the brooder instead...

All of the deaths were preventable!

I feel horrible that those poor chickies died because of someones stupidity!

Urg. Stupid people. Urg.

I had a similar issue recently.
I was trying out my incubator, so I hatched some chicks and put them up on a local Freecycle type group. This woman took fifteen of the chicks, insisting she had lots of experience with chickens, and plenty of room, etc. I did suggest she feed them medicated chick feed, but she didn't want to do anything "unnatural" with them. So I said it would be a good idea to have some Corrid on hand. I even told her she could have a few spoons of my Corrid so she could have it on hand if she needed it. And she declined.

So, OK, a few days later she messaged me to say one chick was looking sick. So I reminded her about the Corrid since it sounded like coccidiosis. She said she'd get some. Flash forward a week and a half and she once again messaged me to tell me how much she loved the three chicks that were left. AND straight out stated that there was something wrong with the genetics of my chickens since so many died and one of the ones who lived was "so much smaller than the others" And I reminded her about the coccidiosis.... and again she insisted she wanted to do everything natural... AND I mentioned (again, not for the first time) that one of the hens was a bantam, which explains the smaller, but healthy, chick.

Her reaction? To insist that there HAD to be something wrong with my chickens. Oh, and to say she'd be happy to take any more chicks if I was going to give any away again.

Yep. I gave her the chicks. And she killed 4/5ths of them. Because she wanted to do everything "natural."

Yeah .. she is not getting any more free chicks from me. Nope. Nope. Nope.

 

[jbkirk]

Quote:

Urg. Stupid people. Urg.

I had a similar issue recently.
I was trying out my incubator, so I hatched some chicks and put them up on a local Freecycle type group. This woman took fifteen of the chicks, insisting she had lots of experience with chickens, and plenty of room, etc. I did suggest she feed them medicated chick feed, but she didn't want to do anything "unnatural" with them. So I said it would be a good idea to have some Corrid on hand. I even told her she could have a few spoons of my Corrid so she could have it on hand if she needed it. And she declined.

So, OK, a few days later she messaged me to say one chick was looking sick. So I reminded her about the Corrid since it sounded like coccidiosis. She said she'd get some. Flash forward a week and a half and she once again messaged me to tell me how much she loved the three chicks that were left. AND straight out stated that there was something wrong with the genetics of my chickens since so many died and one of the ones who lived was "so much smaller than the others" And I reminded her about the coccidiosis.... and again she insisted she wanted to do everything natural... AND I mentioned (again, not for the first time) that one of the hens was a bantam, which explains the smaller, but healthy, chick.

Her reaction? To insist that there HAD to be something wrong with my chickens. Oh, and to say she'd be happy to take any more chicks if I was going to give any away again.

Yep. I gave her the chicks. And she killed 4/5ths of them. Because she wanted to do everything "natural."

Yeah .. she is not getting any more free chicks from me. Nope. Nope. Nope.

That leaves me wondering what went wrong here because we never give ANY of our chicks medications (except for electrolytes)and 19/20 of them are fine in every batch.

 

[ochochicas]

I sell locally for $3 a dozen but I'm near the border and the Canadians pay $5 a dozen.

I sell mine for $4 per dozen. If people have egg cartons to trade I will give them a discount so they only pay $3.50. I actually have a waiting list of people that want more eggs. I guess I'll have to get some more chickens! LOL

I'm so mad!

I sold some day old chicks to a lady that I hatched myself and saw her yesterday. She told me some of those chicks are no good. When I asked her what she was talking about because I know they were all healthy when I gave them to her she said some died. I asked her why and she said one had poop stuck to its butt, some "just died" and the other ones drowned in the water dish. Out of 11 she killed off 7! She gave the rest to her neighbor THANK GOD! They were for her husband and he left town. She apparently thought the heat lamp would burn her garage down so she unplugged it and put a blanket in the brooder instead...

All of the deaths were preventable!

I feel horrible that those poor chickies died because of someones stupidity!

That stinks. I waited for mine to be over one pound before I sold them. At least that way they have a chance of surviving if they end up with a stupid owner.

 

[CarolynF]

Quote:

Urg. Stupid people. Urg.

I had a similar issue recently.
I was trying out my incubator, so I hatched some chicks and put them up on a local Freecycle type group. This woman took fifteen of the chicks, insisting she had lots of experience with chickens, and plenty of room, etc. I did suggest she feed them medicated chick feed, but she didn't want to do anything "unnatural" with them. So I said it would be a good idea to have some Corrid on hand. I even told her she could have a few spoons of my Corrid so she could have it on hand if she needed it. And she declined.

So, OK, a few days later she messaged me to say one chick was looking sick. So I reminded her about the Corrid since it sounded like coccidiosis. She said she'd get some. Flash forward a week and a half and she once again messaged me to tell me how much she loved the three chicks that were left. AND straight out stated that there was something wrong with the genetics of my chickens since so many died and one of the ones who lived was "so much smaller than the others" And I reminded her about the coccidiosis.... and again she insisted she wanted to do everything natural... AND I mentioned (again, not for the first time) that one of the hens was a bantam, which explains the smaller, but healthy, chick.

Her reaction? To insist that there HAD to be something wrong with my chickens. Oh, and to say she'd be happy to take any more chicks if I was going to give any away again.

Yep. I gave her the chicks. And she killed 4/5ths of them. Because she wanted to do everything "natural."

Yeah .. she is not getting any more free chicks from me. Nope. Nope. Nope.

That leaves me wondering what went wrong here because we never give ANY of our chicks medications (except for electrolytes)and 19/20 of them are fine in every batch.

Yes, it's not unusual to skip medicated feed, but when a chick gets sick something needs to be done quickly. It's very likely this novice had something more going on than we'll ever know about! "Natural" can mean something entirely different depending on the situation and the environment.

 

[Hinotori]

Sounds an awful lot like natural to them also ment no heat.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

Sounds an awful lot like natural to them also ment no heat.

Most probably.
Thing is, she assured me she knew all about chickens when she took the chicks. It's that attitude that made her so sure the fault had to be in the parent stock.
Militantly ignorant is how my partner describes it.

 

[Theegoliath]

We bought a black silkie chick a few months back, and it got pasty butt and died within half a day while we were gone at church.... : (

 

[Manningjw]

Yes, it's not unusual to skip medicated feed, but when a chick gets sick something needs to be done quickly. It's very likely this novice had something more going on than we'll ever know about! "Natural" can mean something entirely different depending on the situation and the environment.

I typically skip medicated feed, not necessarily because I don't believe in it just because I don't always have it on hand. I don't like feeding medicated feed for extended periods of time so that would mean I would have to make a special trip for a small bag and I am not very close to any feed stores. So far, out of probably 40 or 50 healthy chicks I have only lost 1 and I don't think medicated feed would have helped him, I suspect he got trampled in the night by the other chicks. If my chicks appeared to be struggling I am sure I would go get a bag and see if it helped.

There were a couple of times when re-homing roosters I wish I would have screened the prospective people better.

 

[Rainier]

I'm so mad!

I sold some day old chicks to a lady that I hatched myself and saw her yesterday. She told me some of those chicks are no good. When I asked her what she was talking about because I know they were all healthy when I gave them to her she said some died. I asked her why and she said one had poop stuck to its butt, some "just died" and the other ones drowned in the water dish. Out of 11 she killed off 7! She gave the rest to her neighbor THANK GOD! They were for her husband and he left town. She apparently thought the heat lamp would burn her garage down so she unplugged it and put a blanket in the brooder instead...

All of the deaths were preventable!

I feel horrible that those poor chickies died because of someones stupidity!

That is just so sad. Unfortunately people can be stupid and you just cannot fix stupid! I love having the chickens and would love to hatch out a bunch but worry about situations like you had. I have a couple of neighbors that I am going to try and hatch eggs for but not sure about selling to the general public!

 

[CharterChick]

I'm in College going to school for nursing and I'm taking Microbiology right now. She said if we do a project not class related she might give us extra credit. So I was explaining my teacher what I was doing with the children hatching eggs in the class and how I made them a coloring lab book. So the teacher is giving me extra credit if I give her a coloring book to show her the process of what the children recorded. Worth an extra 5% on my final grade!!! Chicken math improving my grade!!!! Woo Hoo!!!