We lost one chick yesterday and four today to tiny biting black flies, also called Buffalo Gnats, google says. They're thick over by the coop, and yesterday's heat made them hungry. The chicks either died from asphyxiation after their nostrils became clogged with the gnats, or from anaphylactic shock from so many bites. We took the four sickest little ones inside the house, picked off the gnats, and gave them a warm water bath, and put them in a fresh-straw nest with a heat lamp while I ran to town for some permethrin and chicken gatorade. Two died while I was gone, and one shortly after I got home, but I was (fingers crossed!) able to save my favorite little chicklet, Pepita, with regular handfeeding and an afternoon in the sunshine. I just went over to check on her and she was standing up and pecking at her grit. Hang in there, Pumpkinseed.
Sidenote: Hens are so much more tame than roosters! All the hens currently in the coop are so happy to be picked up and pet, unlike our nasty, pecky, hairy brutes from last summer. I have a glimmer of understanding for Alice Walker's
LOVE for her chickens!
buffalo gnat! yikes,that sounds like an awful death, poor little chickies.
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