AndyAmbiguous
Chirping
- Apr 23, 2020
- 40
- 52
- 66
Hey yall!
So this is my first batch of chicks I'm raising and we are 4 weeks in, now. SG Dorkings. About a week ago I noticed one of them wasn't growing as fast as the others. They all have chest feathers and tails coming in, and some even have little pants. This little guy still only had wing feathers, and even still some fluff on the wings, and only the smallest hint of tail feathers. In the last few days I noticed him sleeping a lot more than the others, not waking when the others did, so I started hand feeding him separately with soaked feed. He always felt very thin. Today is friday, so on Monday he was gobbling his soaked feed down and filling up in 30 seconds, and by yesterday it took him a full 30mins to finish eating. Today while I cleaned the brooder I set him aside, apart from the others, so he wouldn't get trampled. His poor little legs were white pale, and he had no interest in eating at all, could barely stand. And he passed this afternoon. No problems holding up his neck or swallowing that I could see. He regularly got trampled and pooped on.
Now I understand that losing chicks is normal, we culled one early with leg deformities so this is the second out of ten we have lost. I'm just concerned about the possibility his death is something I could have prevented, especially if it might affect the others? I'm doing a homemade chick starter because I am deathly allergic to wheat and gluten, so it's a mix of cracked brown rice, corn, sorghum, buckwheat, millet, chia, almond flour, flax flour, soy fiber, and a bit of nutritional yeast, all measured to be 22% protein. Overnight I give them a full chick feeder with dry feed, and during the day they get two little bowls of soaked feed (they waste a whole lot less of it this way). I also occasionally give them a handful of chopped up grass and dandelion greens, they love that. They dirty their water constantly so I refresh that at least 3 times a day, but it's full of wood chips by morning every morning. Their substrate in the brooder is very dry aged wood chips, mostly maple and oak. I really hope I'm not making some sort of grave error in my husbandry that I don't know about yet!
So this is my first batch of chicks I'm raising and we are 4 weeks in, now. SG Dorkings. About a week ago I noticed one of them wasn't growing as fast as the others. They all have chest feathers and tails coming in, and some even have little pants. This little guy still only had wing feathers, and even still some fluff on the wings, and only the smallest hint of tail feathers. In the last few days I noticed him sleeping a lot more than the others, not waking when the others did, so I started hand feeding him separately with soaked feed. He always felt very thin. Today is friday, so on Monday he was gobbling his soaked feed down and filling up in 30 seconds, and by yesterday it took him a full 30mins to finish eating. Today while I cleaned the brooder I set him aside, apart from the others, so he wouldn't get trampled. His poor little legs were white pale, and he had no interest in eating at all, could barely stand. And he passed this afternoon. No problems holding up his neck or swallowing that I could see. He regularly got trampled and pooped on.
Now I understand that losing chicks is normal, we culled one early with leg deformities so this is the second out of ten we have lost. I'm just concerned about the possibility his death is something I could have prevented, especially if it might affect the others? I'm doing a homemade chick starter because I am deathly allergic to wheat and gluten, so it's a mix of cracked brown rice, corn, sorghum, buckwheat, millet, chia, almond flour, flax flour, soy fiber, and a bit of nutritional yeast, all measured to be 22% protein. Overnight I give them a full chick feeder with dry feed, and during the day they get two little bowls of soaked feed (they waste a whole lot less of it this way). I also occasionally give them a handful of chopped up grass and dandelion greens, they love that. They dirty their water constantly so I refresh that at least 3 times a day, but it's full of wood chips by morning every morning. Their substrate in the brooder is very dry aged wood chips, mostly maple and oak. I really hope I'm not making some sort of grave error in my husbandry that I don't know about yet!
