I think I have a sick quail chick

[dorawinifred]

Hi everyone! I'm currently watching over my 4-day-olds. They are from my third incubation attempt ever, and this current generation is the first time I've incubated eggs from my own backyard. I noticed yesterday that one of them was a lot smaller than the others. She's barely any bigger than the day she hatched, meanwhile her hatchmates are much larger and starting to grow their first feathers. This chick in question spends most of her time sleeping under the heat lamp. Every hour or so I've been offering her some honey water+nutridrench and some chick crumbles mashed in water, but she'll only take a few bites at a time. The other chicks are eating and drinking constantly.

I've also given her some crushed up egg yolk and I bought some electrolytes for chicks to give to her later. But I'm hesitant to try stuffing a bunch of different remedies down her throat and currently focusing on trying to get her to take some of the honey water solution for calories, nutrients, and hydration, and keeping her warm as she sleeps. I haven't seen her poop yet, but it's possible she did while I just wasn't around to see it.

If it matters, my current adult flock has 11 birds, and all my males are birds I hatched from supermarket eggs.

Have any of you experienced quail keepers encountered this and have ideas for what else I can do to help this baby get better? I work from home and the brooder is in my office, so I'm open to anything, no matter how labor intensive.

 

[Nabiki]

It doesn't sound good for that chick. You're doing everything that I would do, but sometimes chicks just fail to thrive. This one might not make it.

 

[dorawinifred]

Thank you @Nabiki I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing then and hope for the best, but keep my expectations realistic.