The sad story of the chicks...

[lwheelr]

The hatchery in question trawls the forums online, looking for their name. I have related what happened accurately - but if I publicly mention their name, they have more money for lawyers than I do, and they could bring a lawsuit for libel. I'm not out for revenge either - I'd like to be able to caution people better than this, but legally, in a situation like this one, it is difficult to do.

So if something like this happens, you have to be very careful WHAT you say, and whose name you post publicly.

I'm a web design professional, and I have to know the laws and regs about publishing content.


An update on the chicks - they are continuing to die. The initial disease has probably cycled through, they are most likely no longer actively ill with it. It can stay contagious in their feces for two weeks after they no longer show symptoms, but it is HARD to tell when they no longer show symptoms, because they usually come down with other things so fast that you can't hardly tell where one disease stops and the next one starts.

Because the disease destroys their immune system, they'll get sick from dumb stuff that usually isn't a problem. Every single bacteria that normally strengthens their immune system can overpower them and kill them.

We are still losing 1-2 chicks a day, and there are always a few more sickening.

Our adult chickens seem to be having mild problems on an ongoing basis also, though I'm not exactly sure of the origin of that yet - we are fairly certain they did catch the IBD.

The chicks that our friend ordered and which were delivered two weeks later are having some issues now - one dead, one losing ground. They turn three weeks old this week, so we'll know soon whether they got it too. If they did, we'll know that it is in more than one facility for the company, because these were actually shipped from another company that is in partnership with them.

 

[lwheelr]

Chicks are continuing to die, and it seems that it is accelerating again, which probably means they are catching other things. Given that their immune systems are now gone, even friendly bacteria and fungus can now wipe them out.

We now have only 10 Cochins left, out of 30 originally, and only about four still look healthy. Part of me still hopes a few can make it, though I seriously doubt it now.

We have 4 Americaunas still struggling along, and about 8 Buff Orpingtons. About 8 Brown Leghorns and 10 Bantam Americaunas are left also. We started with 20 of each (80 total), and there are still sick ones in each brooder, so the death toll will most likely be total by the time we are done.

Just reporting on this so you all can have as clear a picture as possible of what this disease does.

 

[i_am2bz]

I'm really sorry you're going thru this, Laura. What a waste & a shame.

I got all my chicks from a local hatchery & have had no problems whatsoever. Sounds like that's what I'll continue to do.

Hang in there.

 

[BarredBuff]

 

[lwheelr]

It's kinda sad, you know, to have to go back and tally the dead ones every morning. And to go back two or three times a day, not just to check their feed and water, but to move them and make sure there are no dead ones under where they are grouped together.

I think this was something I was not prepared for. I mean, you expect things to die, and that is all part of the animal raising thing. But seeing them die, one by one, and not being able to do a darned thing about it. That is an incredibly powerless feeling. Somehow, I think I ought to be able to make it better. But there is no herb, no therapy, no strategy to fix it.

And then there's the financial side - We got a refund on some of the chicks, but not on the feed they consumed, the time we spent, the hopes and expectations of return in the spring, the resetting of our entire poultry plan for next summer.

So we have these chicks, unlikely to survive even long enough to butcher and get SOMETHING back out of it. Yet we keep feeding them. Because we have a stewardship to give them the best care we can, and because we feel that life and death in such situations should be the Lord's choice (butchering is different - we are using them to sustain life).

So every day, the losses get bigger, and the chance of any kind of return gets smaller. The amount of feed we fix is dwindling also. I don't really BEGRUDGE the feed, just dislike the financial waste.

Lots of things to think about with it - and lots of things to learn. But just wish that someone who had the ability to stop it, had done the responsible thing before it came to this.

 

[Bethanial]

God bless you for being a great steward to that which He has entrusted you, and making sure those chicks don't suffer any more than they need to.

 

[lwheelr]

The chicks are almost all gone now. We have 10 assorted bantam Americaunas and Brown Leghorns, combined. All of the Standard Americaunas and all of the Buff Orpingtons died, the last of them this morning. We have just seven Cochins left also - that means one cage of 40 completely wiped out, one cage of 40 with 10 left, and one cage of 30 with 7 left.

They are in a room at the back of the house, where the temperature is fairly stable. The youngest of them are seven weeks old now, well past the point where they are supposed to need heat lamps. So yesterday afternoon we removed them - really can't afford to pay the power bill on them anymore, WAY too expensive, especially if we are not getting anything out of them except chicks that are dying anyway.

The rate of decline doubled overnight. So I think that a lot of them were still sick - which we kind of knew anyway since some of them never did stop huddling and shivering.

I wonder if something else hit and went through at the same time though, because the Cochins didn't have any lamps still on them, and we lost two of them overnight as well.

I am giving them garlic and calendula regularly, but still feel it is probably a lost cause.

I think about three or four of the Cochins are still growing, all the rest have pretty well stopped growing. Some of the Cochins are the same size as the Bantams Americaunas that are four weeks younger. And the size differences now mean that some of the Standard sized Brown Leghorns are the same size as some of the Bantam Americaunas of the same age. The ones that aren't growing don't act normal - they don't eat well, they huddle and shiver most of the time. The ones that are growing still huddle most of the time (they did even with the heat lamps on), and aren't eating like healthy chicks do.

Given the outcome, there is no doubt at all that they really did have Infectious Bursal Disease. When chicks get it early, it is almost always 100% fatal, if not from the disease itself, then from secondary diseases that they get after their immune system is destroyed.

 

[i_am2bz]

How very sad. The poor little things. I'm really sorry for what you're going thru.

 

[Denim Deb]

What a shame.

 

[Neko-chan]

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