Dying bantam babies (long)

[Snakebiteholloway]

On this past Friday i bought the last 13 bantams at TSC for my daughter. They were on sale for 1$ each, so what the heck. Throw a separate smaller elevated coop together in 4 hours. Got them home, transferred them to the 95⁰ brooder, checked their eating and drinking was all good. I saw the medicated chick feed was still a bit too large for them so i ground it up. Since then, all but two have died. Initially they all had days worth of pasty butt, and some died same night. After carefully cleaning the dried poo and plugged vents i noticed most had whitish pus coming from inside the vent. Several seemed fine, the weak ones died that night. The rest died over the next few days. With no obvious symptoms! Eating drinking and active though ALWAYS cold even though i raised the temp of their brooder to 98, then 99. They shriek if its lower. Finally i was down to 3. They seened great. Healthy looking. Feathered little feet scratching and pecking around.
Today, another one died after 2 days and 2 nights of no further issues. Pasty butt came back x 1 day, vent not blocked, cleaned it. Seemed fine.
The only symptom I've noticed is they don't seem to digest the food well, even finely ground. It comes out the same way it went in! I checked to see if it was just poo stuck to scattered feed, but no. It's all poo.
Has anyone heard of this? There no symptoms I'm familiar with. No sour orange poo, no lethargy, no wing dropping, nothing except the undigested kibble.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

transferred them to the 95⁰ brooder

Eating drinking and active though ALWAYS cold even though i raised the temp of their brooder to 98, then 99. They shriek if its lower.

I'm sorry for your losses.

Can you post photos of the brooder setup, poop and the chicks?

With them all coming to you with pasty butt and they were on sale, perhaps most were already very weak.

The whole brooder is 99F or just one warm spot?

If you have electrolytes/vitamins add those to the water for part of the day, then fresh water for the remainder.

Grinding the feed is a good idea, you can also offer it as a wet mush for a few days to see if they are able to process that better.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

I'm sorry for your losses.

Can you post photos of the brooder setup, poop and the chicks?

With them all coming to you with pasty butt and they were on sale, perhaps most were already very weak.

The whole brooder is 99F or just one warm spot?

If you have electrolytes/vitamins add those to the water for part of the day, then fresh water for the remainder.

Grinding the feed is a good idea, you can also offer it as a wet mush for a few days to see if they are able to process that better.

All great ideas and i warm the brooder to 90⁰ on one side, 99⁰ in the center and 95⁰ on the "nest" side. The mush idea seems to retain more moisture in the lil bodies. Using that daily as they still have very grainy poops. Pictures after work. The electrolytes are standard to all my birds, every 2nd day with these guys and really weak mix. They are tiny tiny. I've honestly just begun to think they were a genetically weak hatching for some reason. It's seems like a copout, but 11 birds dying in 4 days seems excessive even with zero care ! And i baby my babies, so i simply can't figure it. I've had bantams several times, probably 20 individuals, and while their size renders them fragile, I've never seen anything like this.
Thanks for the ideas! Putting all into play now. More late this evening. I'm also looking at stool samples under my scope.

 

[randysherry]

On this past Friday i bought the last 13 bantams at TSC for my daughter. They were on sale for 1$ each, so what the heck. Throw a separate smaller elevated coop together in 4 hours. Got them home, transferred them to the 95⁰ brooder, checked their eating and drinking was all good. I saw the medicated chick feed was still a bit too large for them so i ground it up. Since then, all but two have died. Initially they all had days worth of pasty butt, and some died same night. After carefully cleaning the dried poo and plugged vents i noticed most had whitish pus coming from inside the vent. Several seemed fine, the weak ones died that night. The rest died over the next few days. With no obvious symptoms! Eating drinking and active though ALWAYS cold even though i raised the temp of their brooder to 98, then 99. They shriek if its lower. Finally i was down to 3. They seened great. Healthy looking. Feathered little feet scratching and pecking around.
Today, another one died after 2 days and 2 nights of no further issues. Pasty butt came back x 1 day, vent not blocked, cleaned it. Seemed fine.
The only symptom I've noticed is they don't seem to digest the food well, even finely ground. It comes out the same way it went in! I checked to see if it was just poo stuck to scattered feed, but no. It's all poo.
Has anyone heard of this? There no symptoms I'm familiar with. No sour orange poo, no lethargy, no wing dropping, nothing except the undigested kibble.

We just got 10 Duck wing old English bantam chicks and two weeks later they all died. They were on an enclosed porch, so the temperature could have varied. Then the farm store replaced them on Thursday with a batch that had just arrived that day. This time we had them in the dining room watching the temp. We hatched New Hampshires last year and got a shipment of Red Stars in the mail and those are laying and healthy adult birds a year later. But today, Sunday, the new batch all died again. We literally have no idea why.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

We just got 10 Duck wing old English bantam chicks and two weeks later they all died. They were on an enclosed porch, so the temperature could have varied. Then the farm store replaced them on Thursday with a batch that had just arrived that day. This time we had them in the dining room watching the temp. We hatched New Hampshires last year and got a shipment of Red Stars in the mail and those are laying and healthy adult birds a year later. But today, Sunday, the new batch all died again. We literally have no idea why.

I don't understand it either.
Did you notice any symptoms?

I've raised so many chickens and honestly don't like brooding bantams due to their delicacy. And fussiness. I live in a tiny house in North Maine, they can't go outside til June at the earliest, even with heat lights, and there's no getting away from the crying in a house this small, or the heat needed for them! lol
My daughter wanted the bantams, but they all started dying so i brought them over here to help out, she's in college all day. She's the turkey person, I'm the chicken person. (The new poults were long outdoors by then, no cross contamination).
We aren't inexperienced, having had more than 100 babies between us so far. And a handful injured ones we saved despite long odds!
So yeah. I'm puzzled.

The two that looked different from all the others are still thriving. I can't help suspect poor hatching practice or bad genetics or something along those lines. Ours came from Hoover Hatchery to TSC. We'd never had any trouble before. So, yup. Stumped.

Again the only symptoms were failure to digest, extreme pasty butt on arrival, white pus leaking from the vent after cleaning (probably from the pasty butt so long), constant coldness despite higher temps indicating poor thermal regulation or fever.
I thought the duration of the pasty butt probably set up an internal infection. That's my best guess. But the cause of the critical pasted vents is the real culprit and idk the answer to that. I've never seen it that bad.

Ideas welcome.