My silkie chicks are dying am I doing everything I can?

[LaceySilkieLove]

She died over night. I tried to give her water and poly vi sol but she couldn't swallow. I'm going to do a more extensive search to see what may have happened. I still have one white silkie with a big bee hive hair do looking head and a black one with a normal head. They look lonely. When I pick one up the other gets upset. I wonder how soon I can put them with my 3 week older chicks? If they make it that is. They seem fine but so did the other one.

 

[stoopid]

Silkies heads are a little more fragile than most because of the vault.
You can try to put them together and see what happens.
I would be more worried since we don't know what it is, it could turn bad really fast.
If they got a bump on the head, that's one thing.
But if they have some sort of disease, then get ready for the plague.
It just may kill everyone.
It might be a good idea to have the body necropsied to be sure.
You can call your state agriculture dept, and there may be a charge, but not as much as a vet.
Put it in a ziplock bag into the fridge. Not the freezer, as freezing will kill some diseases.

I'm so sorry you have to go through this.
I am a small time Silkie breeder, where are you located? I may be able to help replace them without shipping.

Roberta

 

[LaceySilkieLove]

I live in Atlanta do I don't think I could drive there! Do you also ship your silkies? I do want to get more once I know every body elce is in the clear. They are still separated and the last two silkies seem fine but one does shake her head a lot. My Cochins seem healthy as can be. I sure hope this doesn't turn into a chicken plague.

 

[Adenium]

One of mine had a weird head shaking thing but seems to have gotten over it. The odd thing was that none of my 4 is vaulted...but it seems perhaps silkies have a few neurological oddities regardless. Fluffy and cute but not normal chickens!

 

[LaceySilkieLove]

They are very strange chickens! Silkies are. But that's why I like them! But I also really like my fluffy footed Cochin bantams. They have really cute personalities

 

[stoopid]

How is everyone holding up?

 

[LaceySilkieLove]

Everyone has been doing great untill this morning, I kid you not, a gigantic hawk swooped down right in front of me and my husband and while we were screening grabbed our little Cochin bantam hen named spicy. we are so sad! No more supervised free range fun for our chickens. We are going to make them a bigger enclosed area. Our two silkies are still inside and doing just fine.

 

[Adenium]

I am so sorry! That's the last thing you needed after the long saga of raising the chicks.

Ours have just started supervised free-ranging recently. They generally keep to the edge of the woods where there are dense saplings, so they're pretty well hawk-protected. However, silkies being not-so-bright, one of the white ones decided to run right in the middle of the big upper driveway area this afternoon....and squawk to call attention to herself. She was upset as we'd rounded up the others and put them in the coop, but sheesh. She's a bright white target, and the most fluffed out (muffed and bearded) so the least able to see threats. A little caution on her part would be warranted, but no....she's a silkie.

Maybe we're kidding ourselves that being out there supervising helps. I do watch for hawks and we'd shoo the babies into the woods or coop if hawks circled while they were out, but yours isn't the first horror story I've heard. I think someone had a hawk grab their chicken less than 10 feet away

We haven't built our run yet, but i think the free-roaming time will be limited once it's done. We'll have about 10 x 16 for the 7 chickens. We get hawks A LOT, but I only see them in the earlier part of the day. Maybe later outings will be safer? When was your chicken taken?

 

[LaceySilkieLove]

Adenium,
I have been wanting to respond for a couple of days I've just been so busy! Anyway, the hawk swooped down about 20 ft away even though my husband swears it was closer. And it was in the morning at about 10:30 pm. We had just let them out and walked inside for 2 seconds to get them a treat and when we were walking back over to the chickens most of them had run under a bush and one was by itself doing the "where did everybody go?!" destress call. And I was walking over there to get her when it swooped down and we screamed at it but to no avail. So the next day we both stood outside right there with them and in the afternoon sence we don't see the hawks out as much then and they played around our feet safely. We went to our old house and got our bigger coup we built and they think it's play time all the time to be in there. And you definately gotta watch out for silkies! They will do some not so smart things. Everyone is doing really well though. No more sick chicks or hawk kidnappings! That was the craziest thing to see that hawk come down right there. It was huge! It was like watching animal planet but sad for us.

 

[Adenium]

Ugh. I guess no time is very safe. Hoping all our flocks are OK from here on out.