Chic Rustler
Super Self-Sufficient
- Joined
- May 10, 2017
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To date i have hatched out and raised around 400 chicks and have never had this issue. In the past couple weeks i have lost around 30.
It all started when my daughter insisted i take a hatch of chicks from a friend of hers. The family was getting rid of all their chicks because of tickets from the city as the story goes. Beings we only have 3 hens atm i said what the heck and took them against my better judgement.
Our brooder has always been the same. A 5x3 ish wooden box i built from scrap some years ago with a 1x2 mesh top and a heat lamp hanging from the roof of the shed. As always i added 4 inches of pine chips and set it all up for the chicks. The next day we got 10 from the family.
The chicks started dying off 1 by 1. Because the nights are still cold i went and bought 15 more from TSC in hopes that they will all stay warm. i also loaded my incubator with 40ish eggs and got it going. About the same time i ordered 30 pullets and 25 meat birds online due to arrive in april.
Well the chicks kept dying. All of the 10 we got from that family and 7 of the ones we gor from tsc died. Then i had a great hatch. All of the fertile egga hatched which came out to around 30. I cleaned out the brooder, washed the waterer and feeder and put my chicks in the brooder along with the surviving tsc chicks that were much bigger by now. In a week all of my hatch died except 8. The larger tcs chicks are doing well.
ive done everything as i usually do. im worried those original 10 brought something with them. And in other news the chicks i ordered will arrive tomorrow or the next day.
so i moved the larger chicks out to the grow out pen. i made a makeshift brooder for the 8 others from a rabbit cage. Then i carried my brooder outside and sprayed it down with 20% bleach solution, let that sit a while and then scrubbed it out with hot water and soap. then i sprayed it out with a hose and then aprayed it down with bleach solution again and left out to dry in the sun until the chicks arrive. The only other thing i know to do is switch to medicated chick starter.
you guys wish me luck. pics to follow for reference
It all started when my daughter insisted i take a hatch of chicks from a friend of hers. The family was getting rid of all their chicks because of tickets from the city as the story goes. Beings we only have 3 hens atm i said what the heck and took them against my better judgement.
Our brooder has always been the same. A 5x3 ish wooden box i built from scrap some years ago with a 1x2 mesh top and a heat lamp hanging from the roof of the shed. As always i added 4 inches of pine chips and set it all up for the chicks. The next day we got 10 from the family.
The chicks started dying off 1 by 1. Because the nights are still cold i went and bought 15 more from TSC in hopes that they will all stay warm. i also loaded my incubator with 40ish eggs and got it going. About the same time i ordered 30 pullets and 25 meat birds online due to arrive in april.
Well the chicks kept dying. All of the 10 we got from that family and 7 of the ones we gor from tsc died. Then i had a great hatch. All of the fertile egga hatched which came out to around 30. I cleaned out the brooder, washed the waterer and feeder and put my chicks in the brooder along with the surviving tsc chicks that were much bigger by now. In a week all of my hatch died except 8. The larger tcs chicks are doing well.
ive done everything as i usually do. im worried those original 10 brought something with them. And in other news the chicks i ordered will arrive tomorrow or the next day.
so i moved the larger chicks out to the grow out pen. i made a makeshift brooder for the 8 others from a rabbit cage. Then i carried my brooder outside and sprayed it down with 20% bleach solution, let that sit a while and then scrubbed it out with hot water and soap. then i sprayed it out with a hose and then aprayed it down with bleach solution again and left out to dry in the sun until the chicks arrive. The only other thing i know to do is switch to medicated chick starter.
you guys wish me luck. pics to follow for reference
