[Katrishwa]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking but haven't really posted yet, and sadly my post comes on a day where we've lost our first chick.

We've had three Chocolate Orpington Bantams since they were four days old. They are now 5 and a half weeks old, but sadly our biggest girl, Dianosaurus Ross passed away at about 4pm this afternoon. They were moved into their new coop on Wednesday night, which is still in our house as they are far too small to go outside. We left the door from the coop to their run open, to give them the option to roam about if they wanted to (in the daytime the run door is open so they can come into our workspace as well as roam around their own run and coop). Sadly it seems Dianosaurus got down the ladder into the run on her own, late at night, and she couldn't get back up again. There was a light on, but I don't think they've worked the ladder out properly yet.

It seems her temperature must have dropped, she spent the whole of today asleep, getting weaker and weaker, and after drip feeding her water since lunch time she sadly passed away this afternoon.

We're absolutely devastated, but I'm now concerned about our other girls and how they will react to what has happened. They didn't see her for most of today as we had her upstairs in the hen house on her own, under the brinsea, and they were running around as normal. But now the evening is here and I've closed off the run to them so we don't have the same tragedy again, they seem to be making an awful lot of noise.

They have a light on and the front door is open so they can perch while looking out at what we're doing, but they don't have free roam - there's still a lot of space in there for them though. They have their brinsea, a light on, their food and fresh water. They're just squawking and squawking and I'm wondering if it's because they know their sister isn't there?

Is this normal behaviour? Usually when they squawk they just want some attention from us, we've given them that, but they're still going for it. Do you think they know something is up? Or are they just having a moan because they're in a mood at not having free roam?

Any advice or suggestions would be great, it's been a hell of a day watching Dianosaurus slowly die at just 5 weeks, despite our best efforts, and I really don't want our other girls to be so distressed.

Thanks guys,

Kat

[bantam novice]

So sorry to hear about your chick 
 It is never easy to lose one.  I think that your other chicks are more likely to be "commenting" about the change in routine for them and they should settle down OK.  Having said that I am not an expert.  I'm sure someone more experienced will be along to advise you.  In the meatime good luck, welcome to the forum and keep us posted.

[Katrishwa]

Thanks for your quick reply! I'm actually on a few forums but I haven't yet found anyone who also keeps orpington bantams, so if you know of (or anyone who's watching) someone who has them, who could share some experiences, that'd be great. I'm particularly interested in the transitional stages as up until now we haven't had any problems, but now I'm starting to question what should and shouldn't be happening at different stages - and the more I chat to people on forums the more I realize every breed is so different.

The breeders of our chicks run a massive farm locally where they keep loads of free range chickens, and when we have to go away with work they look after our chicks - they've been so helpful and I see us having a long relationship with them, but it's always good to have a few different people to throw questions at and share experiences with.

Thanks again