Just had my new pond stocked on the 17th with 40lbs of fatheads from a reputable hatchery that delivered them to my pond.
Problem is over the last 48 hours i have several hundred dead on shore already.
Is this a normal occurrence before i call to complain?
Pond water has been pumped from older pond which has bg,lmb,
New pond had zero fish before the fhm.
Just frogs.

I've never lost FHM after stocking. How big is the pond and I wonder if there is enough food for them. I do throw some AM 400 to mine every day and they attack it in droves. Forty pounds is quite a few FHM to gather feed if the pond in new and fairly small. They are generally very hardy otherwise and can live in very shallow water that larger fish can't.

FHM dying three days after stocking into a new fishless pond is definitely not normal. If it was due to a food shortage the fish would not be dying 3 days after stocking. It takes weeks for a normal fish to stare to death. IMO either those fish were originally stressed, held too long prior to stocking, or stressed too much during hauling. Since the pond was filled from an older pond, lots of zooplankton (FHM food) was added to the new pond and poor water quality was not the cause of dying FHM.

Try as best you can to tally all the dead FHM and take a few photos of a collection or pile of the dead fish. If the same fish farm is to stock the pond they should willingly replace the dead fish when they add the rest of the sport fish.

Thats what I thought. After collecting dead minnows I noticed tons of water type bugs and 3mm size tadpiles everywhere.
I will be calling tomm. another 150 plus dead today .

maybe they died sooner and are just now floating up??

they look stressed or anything, the dead ones.? anything odd for a dead fish?

Good luck!

Are they all sizes or just the biggest?

One time I had large amounts of dead minnows after stocking. In my case it was caused by terns diving into the tight school of minnows. They would kill more than they ate. At the time I bought about 40 lbs also. All of those minnows swam very close together and looked like a big black spot.

buck-man, were you present when the fish were delivered? If so, did the delivery person acclimate the fish before releasing them, or just dump 'em in?

Folks were there and said Guy brought buckets of minnows to pond and put some pond water in them for just a couple minutes.
Then poured them in pond. He did say he had some dead ones and put them in older pond for bass to eat.
I got there an hour later and saw several large groups at top swimming around.a few dead here and there which i expected.
Next morning they started washing up, swimming sideways, a bunch of single ones swimming solo.
Then more and more dead ,all diff sizes.
Filled a half gallon jug in 10 feet of shoreline.
Very pissed off.

Didnt notice anything unusual with them .

Give the supplier a chance to make it right before getting mad.

Buck-Man, if that "reputable hatchery" was Logan Hollow or Fountain Bluff, they are indeed good hatcheries and I'm sure a call will get your fish replaced. I haul a LOT of minnows, and unfortunately, sometimes a tank will get stressed and I have to make a return trip, no matter how careful the haul is.

For what it's worth, it can appear that a LOT of minnows die when in fact, weight wise, it is very few. That does NOT sound like it's the case in your situation however. 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of dead fish would be about 20 pounds....near half your stocking. That seems like a very high amount for a "10' section of shore" as the FHM will spread throughout a pond without predators. Makes me think he may have given you a lot more than 40# in anticipation of a large die-off.

Give the hatchery a call, try to keep the anger and emotion out of it and be as factual as possible...most all hatcheries will stand behind their fish, since reputations are everything in this business!

EDIT: "Filled half of a gallon jug" Only about 4 pounds, but still too high on a mortality %. A 2% loss is almost "expected" on minnows, and is almost always gets covered with "extra fish" being stocked originally by most haulers/hatcheries.

How much time between filling the pond and stocking the fish? (Was wondering about the possibility of pumping stagnant "bottom" water from old pond)

Weve had a high output sump pump in a large tin bucket pumping out over the course of 2 months. When it rains it would also pump.
I spoke to the hatchery and he is willing to make things right, On my next order.Says females should of been loaded with eggs and the delivery might of been timed poorly.
Feeling better now.

a little update .. still waiting on the original hatchery to find time in his schedule.. to redeliver

Well after 2 attempts to deliver this spring and many excuses, I am left high and dry. I understand things happen. But when my property is 4 hours away and I have to drive down to open the gate and the Company doesn't show 2 times its more than frustrating . Kurt from Harrison Fishery seemed like a honest person. He stated the load was pregnant females that got stressed and if 10 lbs died you probably lost double that. Updated him on losing a couple more hundred of fatheads the following few days and he reassured he would make things right. We mutually agreed that the best thing was to just do a refund but the snake only refunded me less than a 3rd of what I paid.
Ive texted and called , left messages but ignores my calls on the shortened check.
Harrison Fishery
46074 Lassofish St
Hurdland ,MO

Just thought you all would know about this place.

I can virtually guarantee the FHM were never sorted by sex! It would be very VERY labor intensive given the volume of fish!!! FHM spaw throughout the warm months....you need males to tend/fertilize eggs also.

I was close to you several times the past 4 weeks....

This is probably not the case but I want to throw the idea out there to add to the discussion.

FHM only live around 18 months. Could it be possible that a lot of the minnows were getting "long in the tooth" to borrow a horse expression and getting ready to die and the trip stressed them and finished them off?

Once they expend most of their energy spawning they are not long of this world. Could you have possibly got a significant amount of "old" FHM?

Don't know. Just asking if it is possible or if anyone has seen it.

Ill say the long treck and his multiple stops before mine was the issue.
Bottom line is company took me for a ride and one day it will return to him.

I once turned down a load of tilapia. I looked in the bait tank and most were floating.