Friskybinx
Chirping
I am majorly struggling. I purchased eggs from someone I follow and just love her birds. They were shipped to me. 16 eggs total, 6 ended up hatching. One was a dream chick for me and was a little showgirl that I adored. I put them with naked necks that I purchased that were the same age.
I quickly realized my big red barn brooder was too small after a few days and decided to put them in my larger brooder area I have. I use heat lamps because I prefer them over heat plates. My brooders are big enough to have toasty warm and cool areas.
The silkies were getting pushed around by the naked necks so I decided to just split them up and put them back in the other brooder alone where they could just chill out.
We had a super bad storm blow through where we lost power twice and had to scramble to get their heat back on with our generator, but they weren’t without heat for that long.
After this we just started loosing them one by one. They were 8 days old when they started dying. They seem like they just got super weak, fall over, can’t really walk and when they fall over they can’t right themselves. I’m down to 3 silkie chicks and I think one will die tonight.
They are getting 20% Kalmbach Flock Maker crumbles that I smashed up to be even easier for them to eat. I put some vitamins in their drinking water today, I syringe watered (very carefully) the one I think that’s going to die a tiny bit of yolk and some vitamin water.
They have all also had terrible pasty butt this entire time that I constantly tend to with a wet Qtip.
What am I doing wrong? Did I stress them out and it caused them all to just start dying one after the other? Is it the wrong food? Should I have had vitamins in their water from the get go? Do shipped eggs hatch weak chicks?
I raised 3 silkie chicks before and they were all fine so I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’ve also hatched so many chicks and never loose them like this. I am devastated and feel like a failure. My little showgirl silkie was the first to die.
Please send advice
I quickly realized my big red barn brooder was too small after a few days and decided to put them in my larger brooder area I have. I use heat lamps because I prefer them over heat plates. My brooders are big enough to have toasty warm and cool areas.
The silkies were getting pushed around by the naked necks so I decided to just split them up and put them back in the other brooder alone where they could just chill out.
We had a super bad storm blow through where we lost power twice and had to scramble to get their heat back on with our generator, but they weren’t without heat for that long.
After this we just started loosing them one by one. They were 8 days old when they started dying. They seem like they just got super weak, fall over, can’t really walk and when they fall over they can’t right themselves. I’m down to 3 silkie chicks and I think one will die tonight.
They are getting 20% Kalmbach Flock Maker crumbles that I smashed up to be even easier for them to eat. I put some vitamins in their drinking water today, I syringe watered (very carefully) the one I think that’s going to die a tiny bit of yolk and some vitamin water.
They have all also had terrible pasty butt this entire time that I constantly tend to with a wet Qtip.
What am I doing wrong? Did I stress them out and it caused them all to just start dying one after the other? Is it the wrong food? Should I have had vitamins in their water from the get go? Do shipped eggs hatch weak chicks?
I raised 3 silkie chicks before and they were all fine so I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’ve also hatched so many chicks and never loose them like this. I am devastated and feel like a failure. My little showgirl silkie was the first to die.
Please send advice
one of the chicks left is doing amazing. It’s eating, drinking, scratching, doing all the little chick things so I know the other two should be following suit. They bounce around in the temperature spots but don’t look uncomfortable in the least bit. The naked necks are probably 2-2.5 weeks old at this point with the silkies being a few days behind them. I hatched the silkies on March 8th and I know the naked necks were hatched earlier that week.
