2nd one :( dead dead dead

 So, we came home to chick number two dead today, under the heat lamp which is only on for those few hours in the am, and again in the evening. These chicks are BLRW-and they seem light..i wonder if they just aren't thrifty,..it is only the darker coloured ones; the bluish coloring ones are fine..i think. I talked to an elder member (in experience) and she wondered if i shouldn't post again.
A lot of my hens are what i call "snicking"-they have runny noses..some of them, but eyes are clear. They are out foraging, and flying, chasing each other, and bugs...normal chicken behaviour...
but the deaths..that has me wondering. This chick i noticed fluffed up yesterday, but when i went over to her, she scampered away..so i thought all was good.
any suggestions...is this just bad luck, bad health in this hatch?.
I should mention i have opened the whole chicken house up, so babies(11-13-17 weeks) and adults are using all the space. The yonguns are pooping up the nesting boxes pretty good, and i am cleaning out the boxes the older hens lay in daily...the other ones i have just let build up..but these little guys are still sleeping there.
Tonight, i cleaned out all the boxes, scrubbed the waterers with bleach yesterday...
i am so new to chickens..that any death just comes as a blow....but my seasoned "chicken person" says she doesn't suffer too many deaths at all. This is two in 4-5 days
I am reading the Chicken Encyclopedia posted by ?fowler? and it is a great read. have decided that i am not cleaning the waterers enough. I merely dump the nasty stuff in the resevoir, and only brush it out when it is empty sometimes 4 days. Now i will bleach it out at every re-fill. I will change the litter tonight and put fresh stuff in...
I don't know-am thinking i am not too familiar with the amount of cleaning one should do with waterers etc. Our little chicken house is pretty dark and i have had it closed up-not today..wide open with the heat lamp on. I think it feels humid this am when i opened the doors up.
Will turn the heat off tonight and see how humid it is tomorrow am.
OK guys/gals..i need lots of help with everything...
New house won't be ready for a couple more weeks....Then there will be lots of sun shining in and plenty of airflow but no drafts......
arghhhhh!  

I don't have any suggestions/solutions for the deaths.

Ventilation is very, very important. Rule of thumb is 1 sq ft of ventilation for every 10 sq ft of floor space, using the one chicken per 4 sq ft of floor space rule. If you are more crowded than that, you'll need more ventilation. If it feels humid, you need more ventilation.

Your heat lamp may also be unnecessary. I live in a much colder climate than you, and none of my chickens (12 weeks old and up) have a heat lamp yet.

I use nipple waterers, which are THE SHIZ. No scrubbing nasty waterers, ever. Water is always clean and fresh.

I began to post this lastnight Bigrock, and then deleted.

I hear in you all the earnest good intentions and slight panic that often occurs to newbies when they lose birds. YOu read and research and consult wise people, all good. But the hardest thing to accept here is that chickens die. Sometimes they just up and die for no good reason. Just to mess with your head.

Over the years I have taken a middle of the road approach. When my hen house gets that stink to it, the ammonia that burns chicken lungs and eyes, I clean it out. Windows are always open a crack year round. Chickens can amazingly be too dusty and too humid all at once. I learned early on that the water must be OUTSIDE all year round, except for the small chicks in their own pen. But indoor water was, in my set-up, a death sentence. Yes, in winter it freezes solid. I carry fresh everyday and the birds have learned to drink while it's there. None have died of thirst.

If I have an obviously sick bird that I think is a contagion threat, I remove it. If I think a bird has nothing ahead of it but a slow, miserable death, I make my Husband kill it. I make sure they have dry bedding, they are not bothered by lice or mites (Eprinex and a no pest strip). And after that, it's up to them to live or die.

BIgrock, all you can do is all you can do. Unlike cowsa or horses, chickens do have a high death rate. Often for unknown reasons. What you have to do is find that line where you feel you are being responsible and vigilant, take the steps you feel are reasonable and your obligation. But beyond that, what happens, happens.

When the pleasure of home eggs and home meat becomes a worry and burden and the feeling that you are not keeping birds to some impossible standard, you have to ask yourself, what's the point? Are there idiots who keep birds in such deplorable conditions, with such obvious ignorance of what birds need that they should be beat over the head with a dead rooster? Yes. Make sure you are not one of those people. But also do not let the loss of some birds make you think you are a bad chicken keeper. Loss is inevitable. YOu not only have to find your way on how to do this, which is what people will help you with here. BUt you also have to develop your philosophy, and that will come with a few hard knocks, which you are in the middle of now.

Do the best you can, learn what you can, after that, let it go. A few dead chickens is not a judgement against you. We have ALL been there.

Good post Uno
thanks...yup...newbie
We WILL sort it all out; and it is good advice that we will find our way with what we are comfortable with. My sheep are happy, dogs and cats are happy...and for the most part the chickens are happy too..
So, i will make changes as i think we need to and see what happens. I like the idea of it is up to the chickens..and that thought did fly across my mind at some point...
We are crowded, but i will clean more often, until that is rectified...we are on the push to get the new house done

Authentic farm...i use a heat lamp as the light source to lengthen the days...but did turn it on when the little one died right under the lamp..me thinking it was cold....it was probably just going to die and chose a warm spot to die.
will turn it off till it dips to minus 10 overnight.

Sorry for your loss bigrock.... 

Big Rock, I know lots of people will disagree with me on this, but I think I'll put this out there anyway in case it helps anyone who is experiencing problems with sick chicks or chickens.

I keep chicks separate from adults until they are about 3 month old.  I brood them in a completely different building if at all possible.  I have never lost  a chick to "cold" type symptoms or had respiratory issues with babies, and over the past 2 years I've brooded very close to 1000 chicks all totalled up.  So since I had been dealing with larger numbers I found it became important to take some extra precautions.  
When the chicks are very young I am especially vigilant about keeping waterers sparkling clean, as well as changing the shavings and cleaning the brooder between batches of chicks or every 2 weeks.

I only hatch in spring, and when they are off of heat, they are moved to large growing pens with access to the outdoors. Being exposed to the outdoors is a way to gently introduce them to the natural environment and allow them to develop a healthy immune system. By the time they are moved into coops/pens with adults, they have had lots of time to develop their own natural immunity to the natural pathogens present in the adult environment.  I think many of the problems with illness come from overloading immune systems too fast and too young. Most old homesteads had a coop as well as a brooder house, so the pioneers must have found this worked best for them too.

I know many people who use broody hens to raise chicks in the same coop as the the adults and they say they don't have problems with illness.  But I thought I would share my method as well.  The outcome probably depends on many things and one small batch of chicks may do fine in the hen house. But how many others that we don't hear from raise chicks under broodies and have unexplained losses or chronic illnesses in the flock that seems to be present off and on all the time? I just choose not to expose chicks to adults. I figured I'd share this, becuase sometimes its nice to hear whats working for different people.

Also about your adults 'snicking' sound, I would take that seriously.  Its become habit that every night when I lock up my coops for the night and the birds are quiet and roosting I take a few minutes and stand quietly and listen.  On the off chance that I hear any little sniffle or other unusual sound I'm zoned in on that bird instantly and watching her carefully the next day.  If she seems a bit off will let her be for a day or 2but if there are any symptoms like runny nose that doesnt clear up on its own right away I separate her and treat her.  I prefer Denagard for those kinds of respiratory issues, but I don't have a problem using a stronger antibiotic if I feel its needed.  I don't treat the whole flock, just the one with the illness because I would not want it spreading and infecting everyone.

uno wrote:
BIgrock, all you can do is all you can do. Unlike cowsa or horses, chickens do have a high death rate. Often for unknown reasons.

Back in the day when I used to order hatchery meat chickens I would agree with that.  I would expect to lose a few chicks along the way, and the hatchery would even send a couple extra because they expected that too.  But this is not the case with genetically healthy chicks being raised in a healthy environment.  
During the first week of life, any with obvious weaknesses will lose ground quickly and should be culled. After that I don't believe there should be any deaths until old age starts to creep up, and I would be concerned if there was.  But the genetically healthy part is important.  

Just for fun I bought a trio of beautiful OEG bantams for my daughter who really enjoyed them and took great care of them.  Between the 2 hens they might have layed 2 dozen eggs during their lifetime. Out of the few eggs we incubated only 1 chick made it full term and then died promptly after hatching.  Both hens died when they were 1 1/2 year old within a month of each other - no illness or cause of death was apparent.  They just layed down and died.   I believe this was due to being severely inbred, or bred from birds that have not been carefully selected for health and vigor.
This could also have lots to do with why you are having issues with your chicks Big Rock.