Sick 3 day old baby chick

[Danbenj]

Hi there
We have a flock of 6 hens and a rooster. We have just hatched 5 chicks by incubation. 3 of the eggs were from our own hen and rooster - they are doing really well and seem to be thriving. The other 2 eggs we got from a local farm who we know have hens and roosters and so guessed they might be fertile. One of the chicks is doing really well but the other one seems very disorientated. The chick (3 days old ) doesn't really seem to know where it is and is very clumsy and keeps banging in to things. We have checked his/her legs and they aren't splayed but the chick seems to be falling over and not really walking in a strait line. We wondered if they had a problem with their eyes and cant see well and so have cleaned them. The chick isn't eating or drinking unaided and so we are using a pipet to feed and water. Has anyone experienced this from a newborn chick - any advice on what we can do to help them. Its quite hard to watch.
Thanks

 

[nuthatched]

He could use a vitamin boost, do you have any poultry cell? you can mix a vitamin E gel cap with 1/3 of a b complex tablet in a bit of water with egg yolk and a pinch of sugar.

 

[yakitori]

For the food part, I hold their beak open and stuff a bit of mash (wet feed) towards the base of their beak. I find it easier to fill their crops this way… don’t push it in too far, you want them to swallow it themselves, instead of accidentally feeding it down the wrong pipe. I keep going until i feel a good amount in their crop. If it’s just a vision issue, they’ll eventually learn to eat on their own, but they need enough nutrients to grow first.

Writing this, because I used to go the syringe route, and sometimes they just don’t make it, not because they’re too sick, but because i can’t give them nutrition via syringe for them to sustain themselves until they learn to eat on their own. Learned this the hard way…