missmarielayne
In the Brooder
- May 31, 2016
- 6
- 0
- 10
I went out to feed our chicks this morning (we purchased them back in the middle of May) and one of them was dead. She had no wounds that I could see. This particular chick has a deformity of the beak, which we didn't notice when we purchased her, but it was crooked. The top went one direction while the bottom went the other direction -almost like she broke it somehow. This chick was my favorite because she didn't let this handicap get the best of her. Up until the last time I saw her yesterday afternoon, she was always eating -to the point where she was noticably plumper than the rest of the birds -not insanely plump but it was just noticeable. Could she have eaten too much? Could the chickens have arranged some sort of mutiny to kill her because she was eating all of the food? We feed the chickens water from a rain barrel, which I treat with apple cider vinegar to prevent algae build-up. Maybe the water made her sick? I checked for bloody or generally strange looking fecal matter but didn't see any. The only other thing I can think of is that we have a large amount of ground beetles that hang in and around the water feeder and coop door. We had our house and outside perimeter treated for ground beetles a week ago but the house is quite a distance away from the coop. But maybe she ate one or its larvae that made her sick? I have no idea what happened to her and she was my favorite so I'd like to figure it out before something happens to my other birds. Can anyone shed some light on this? My husband just informed me that she looked really lethargic last night. Maybe she wasn't actually getting any food but just trying? I just don't think that was the case, because like I said she seemed plump.
