8 week chicks laying around

[NEK38583]

Is it normail for 8 week olds to lay around. They have been eating and drinking water. I have notice one or two that seems like they are laying around alot is that normail ?They are Mille Fleur Leghorns if that matters any.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[NancyP]

What is your weather like? Is it possible they are hot?
Nancy

 

[threehorses]

LOVE your avatar!

Could you please do us a favor? Could you please copy the questions from the 2nd sticky post in this forum into a post for this thread - and answer them?

I'm also going to post some questions and suggestions I've posted to someone else who had a similar problem. They apply to you as well, so if you could answer the questions and check out my suggestions, it will help us to more accurately and fully help you. Here's what I posted:

First, so that we can most accurately help you, we need a big of flock history. Could you please read the questions in the second sticky post in this forum, and then answer those questions here in this thread?

Also, please tell us the following:

What is the brooder temperature? Are the babies huddling together, or spread out evenly, or tend to stand near the edges of the brooder?
Are the babies near older birds - in the same room, etc? Do you have another flock?

Are the babies from a hatchery, a feedstore that buys from a hatchery, or from a private breeder?

Are you feeding a feed medicated specifically with Amprolium? {Is it starter/grower or grower? Did you recently change their diet?} Is it 95% of their diet, or are their additional foodstuffs?

When the sticky asks for weight, they also mean the feel of their weight. In other words, pick each chick up. Are their keel bones sharp, or are they weighty chicks? Do they have droppings sticking near their vent?

Smell your feed. Can you smell a strong fresh smell? Or is it a bit like the smell of the bag? How do you store your feed? In what quantity did you buy it? What brand?

Have you been using anything in the water? Any other products?

Then finally, please tell us every condition with your babies. If they're in a brooder outside, has it been rainy? Do they spill their water into their bedding? What bedding or flooring? Everything that seems insignificant is actually important. Sometimes the smallest pieces of a puzzle are the ones that finish the picture for you.

All of the questions I've asked are asked specifically to rule out something that I have in mind. So I ask you to please be patient and answer each one thoroughly. (I don't give grades heheh Everyone passes if you just answer all the questions clearly.) Please think for a monent before you send the final answers just in case something pops up that you remember.

In the mean time, in any case where you have stressed or ill birds, then you should boost their nutrition to give their bodies some fuel with which to fight the illness. It also boosts their immune system, which is always good.

First, continue feedint them grower crumbles. First thing in the morning, first meal, make a damp mash of the following:

Crumbles
Water (1/4th cup) and plain yogurt (2 heaping teaspoons) mixed together in a cup
Boiled egg yolk mashed with a little water til it's a paste. (Save the portion of yolk that you don't use in the freezer for later).
Mix those together til the crumbles are barely moist. Let it sit. You want to make it just so wet that you can ball up a bit in your hand and it will stick, but if you drop it back into a bowl it'll fall apart into crumbley clumps - not glops. You can always add water - but can't take it away. smile

If you feed that first thing in the morning, they'll eat it more readily.

Also please buy Enfamil baby vitamins (PolyViSol, not the added iron formula). I got mine at Walmart in the vitamins section. Two drops per baby per day for 3 weeks or until symptoms decrease (or until different symptoms pop up indicating something else).

The reason I recommend vitamins like this individually fed is that they contain oil-vitamins which do best when given in food, not water, and eaten quickly because vitamins degrade quickly in light. (Which is why they're in dark bottles.) So you KNOW they're getting the vitamins.

Many vitamin deficiencies cause these symptoms. Riboflavin, D3 (calcium/rickets), A deficiencies, etc. All of those vitamins are in Enfamil in a very bioavailable form. IF this is a deficiency, it will help not harm - and might get them improving. (You have to give it a few days - it takes time to develop, it takes time to fix.) If it's not a deficiency then the supportive nutrition will be important.

I look forward to your reply with the answers to the above. Thank you for putting the effort into it so we can put the effort back into helping you.

 

[NEK38583]

I think I know what was wrond last night after I posted the two was haveing trouble walking. I had been treating for cocci in the pen and I was on day 8 a couple of the chick still look sick, so I kep giving them meds after the 6 day period. Well, I stop with the meds and I started giving them regular water, and today they seem alot better. Thanks so much for you help. Hopefully everything will be alright now.

 

[threehorses]

That's wonderful news!

 

[NEK38583]

Thanks so much for all your help.