whats killing the chabo chicks?

[spish]

i seem to have a problem that only involves one breed of chicks...everytime i hatch out chabo chicks, i barely get any making it to adult hood and its really frustrating to not know whats going on?

i have a large adult flock....5 roosters and 20 hens...all from different bloodlines, some from belgium, some from holland, even got a few from the uk that were sent over as eggs.

this year ive incubated +/- 150 chabo eggs....i have just 20 '2011' chabos to show for it. my last hatch being the worse...60 chabo eggs in (along with 10 cochin bantam eggs) that was 3 weeks ago that they hatched. 40 made it through hatching....im already down to just 9..they seem to die off at a rate of 1 or 2 per day. i still have all 6 cochins that hatched. any chabos hatched outside with their mums have been fine, so i dont think its genetic, it must be something im doing wrong.

they show no signs of illness (such as sneezing/runny droppings/leaky eyes, no bloody poops etc) they'll be fine running around in the evening, then at lights out i'll notice one or two huddled in the corner chirping, away from the rest, then the following morning those ones will be dead. it seems to affect the chicks that are under 8 weeks, those who reach 8 weks seem to make it (not that many get that far)

they are on medicated chick feed, 2 x day fresh water...2 heat sources plus plenty of space to get away from heat if they're too hot. no draughts,
this past week for the newest batch of chicks, ive tried antibiotics in the water (denagard) but it hasnt helped (thought maybe it would but as i dont know what im dealing with i dont know what to treat for) in the last lot of chicks i tried cocci treatment as i saw one or two with sloppy poop but think that was perhaps caused by something they ate?

brooders and incubators are disinfected between hatched, other chicks hatched have no problem, just the chabos being hatched inside...... can anyone give me any ideas what i might be doing wrong with these littl chicks?

 

[justbugged]

I would have to guess that if you are not loosing other breeds of chicks, then there is something genetically wrong with the Chabo breed. Have you talked to other Chabo breeders? Sometimes there is a reason that a breed is extremely rare. Some color variations can create fatal genetic flaws also. I seem to remember reading about something like this with Araucana chickens.

I hope that you can figure out what is going on soon.

 

[Pickaduck]

I don't have any answers for you but I thought I might suggest that you post in the breeds section and include the word Chabo in your title so you will be likely to get the attention of people with a lot of experience with these game birds.

I'd have to agree that it sounds like a genetic problem instead of an incubator problem because it's just that breed that seems to be suffering. If you are getting them all from the same seller I'd suggest you find someone else to buy them from as that person's breeding stock may not be of good genetic quality.

I hope you get some answers!

 

[TrystInn]

Since you say the Chabo chicks hatched with their mothers are fine, I'm wondering if its actually not genetic. How's your incubator? You're cleaning it each time its used and hatching other breeds without issue from it?

In your brooder setup, how warm are you keeping the chicks? You mention lights out - does this mean you are turning off all sources of heat for them at night?

 

[TrystInn]

Also, fyi: One unusual characteristic of Japanese bantams is extremely short legs. The trait is mainly caused by a single lethal gene, and all Japanese bantams are heterozygous. When the bantams are bred, 25% of the embryos receive two mutant alleles and die before hatching. 50% of the embryos receive one mutant allele and one wild type allele and are short-legged. The remaining 25% receive two wild type alleles and have legs that are longer than what most breeders want. When the long-legged birds are bred together, they never produce offspring with short legs.

 

[Pickaduck]

Quote:
I'd agree but it's seems weird that the cochin bantams hatched without problems from the same incubator. Unless maybe the eggs hatched under the broody hens were from a different bunch of chabos in which case it would seem to be a genetic problem.

She said they have heat lamps with plenty of space to get away from the heat if they are too hot. She didn't mention turning off the lamps.