A good sick chick story...

[corvidae]

One of the little EE chicks we hatched about 2 weeks ago had a pretty hard time getting out of it's shell, but, when it finally got out, was doing quite well. Until the next day. It went from looking perfectly fine to not being able to stand at all--kept sitting on it's elbows and walking around on them until there were small open sores. It's toes started turning in and curling. I started it on vitamins, put little chick shoes on (which it went nuts over, chirping constantly in irritation) and tried to brace the legs slightly with coban (which it went nuts over and picked at constantly). After a couple of days of rather intense nursing care, I stopped putting coban on and took the shoes off because the chick was pecking at it all the time. Meanwhile, it's legs were getting further and further apart. So we did the bandaid thing to bring the legs together. The poor chick pecked that bandaid so much it drew blood on the right leg, so I took it off. Talked the matter over with my boys, told them the chick wasn't getting any better at all and that it might be best to cull it now before the small open sores on its elbows got bigger or got infected. The chick still wasn't getting up off its elbows and it was chirping almost non-stop. Me eldest son sadly agreed. My middle son, however, flat refused. We finally agreed to give the chick 2-3 more days and see how it went before making a final decision.

That was 3 days ago. darn if that chick isn't up and walking about like a normal chick now. Apparently, all it required was for me to stop messing with it. Its right leg is still swollen at the joint and still has a small open sore on it, but the chick can walk, the chick can hop, the chick appears to be reasonably healthy. Smaller than it's hatchmates, but doing well.

And my middle son has looked at me with the stern eye of of a 9 year old and said, "See? You don't just give up!" I think the kid may be the reincarnation of my father...

 

[StephanieD]

That's great!!!

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

Great Story..

 

[theoldchick]

With the super young and the super old sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone.

 

[Chicky Tocks]

I have a similar story from my last hatch. I typically leave my unhatched, unpipped eggs in the bator until about day 23-24 before giving up on them. Day 24 I've decided to give up on the remaining 3 eggs hatching. Sadly I opened the bator to clean everything up and be done. As I held each egg up to my ear and tapped it, I heard chirping from inside of one! I went into action. I pipped and peeled that little baby out and placed it back in the bator. In my limited 3 years of hatching eggs, it has been my experience that any baby that hatches that late comes out with curled up feet, and this baby was no exception to that experience. After drying and fluffing out, I was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable with myself. This baby couldn't walk, but only scooted around. It was small and weak. I cried because I thought that I had brought suffering to it's little life, but I was determined to give it the best chance I could. I mixed up a stronger batch of poly-visol (without iron) water and dipped it's little beak in. I didn't do the boot thing. I put it in with the rest of the chicks and they rallied around, pecking and showing this baby the way of chickdom. Several times during the day I would again dip it's beak. It was eating and scooting. Next day it began hopping. I sprinkled chick crumbles on a paper towel and continued to have it drink the poly-visol mixture. Day 3 and that chick was up and running! The only way I could tell it apart from the others was that it was smaller. I couldn't have been more happy. I sold that batch of chicks to a lady who helped to oversee a community garden (with chickens) and I gave this little chick as a bonus freebie. That was about 3 weeks ago. I need to email her and find out how everyone is doing.

You just can't beat poly-visol with manna pro chick crumbles! Congrats on your success!