We've noticed that our Cochin/Amer. chick, Oreo, has been acting strange. Not sure if we should be concerned or not?
Breed: mix between Cochin and Ameraucana
Age: Almost 1 1/2 months
Gender: Suspected to be a female
Behavior: Active, curious, healthy-looking, etc..basically acts like a normal, healthy chick.
Symptoms: Once in a while sneezes(no mucus or anything comes out). Sometimes has runny droppings that look normal most of the time(except for one time when I noticed something red in droppings, like blood). *Sometimes when picked up, she will vomit a little. This is out greatest concern. The vomit is watery with no blood in it. Her crop looks normal but is usually mushy and soft, often small even when she always has food and water available.
Food/water: Oreo is fed ground(almost to a powder) corn, with a little ground layer pellets. We've fed all of our chickens this same diet as chicks and they grew up healthy and today are alive and healthy. But just to be safe, we stopped mixing in layer pellets so now she just eats ground corn, sometimes grass and pieces of food like bread for a snack, etc. We give her clean, non-chlorinated water and she drinks on her own. She also eats on her own.
Living space: Oreo's brooder box is located in the house. It is a simple plastic storage tub, with a lamp for light and warmth, a waterer, a food dish, an old sock that she likes to sleep on, and pine shavings. Because of incubator problems, she was the only egg that hatched and has lived alone(except for us taking her out often and some supervised interaction with the older chickens) ever since she hatched. She seems fine with this, since we give her lots of attention and she gets plenty of exercise. We hope to put her brooder box outside in our garage, nearby one of the chicken coops, once she gets older. It's pretty warm right now outside, but just in case, she will have a lamp still. After that we will slowly introduce her to her new flock of chickens that she will be living with when she gets older.
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I'm not really worried about the sneezing, since it's just a little, dry sneeze once and a while and I think it could be caused from the dust from the pine shavings or maybe the ground corn might be getting stuck in her nostrils or something while she's eating. And her droppings seem normal except for being really runny at times. But I'm just really worried about how her crop seems to often be mushy and soft, and sometimes when we pick her up she will vomit a little (the vomit is usually runny. haven't noticed any blood in it).
I think we are going to switch her diet to grower feed from our local feed store. Maybe that's the problem.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Breed: mix between Cochin and Ameraucana
Age: Almost 1 1/2 months
Gender: Suspected to be a female
Behavior: Active, curious, healthy-looking, etc..basically acts like a normal, healthy chick.
Symptoms: Once in a while sneezes(no mucus or anything comes out). Sometimes has runny droppings that look normal most of the time(except for one time when I noticed something red in droppings, like blood). *Sometimes when picked up, she will vomit a little. This is out greatest concern. The vomit is watery with no blood in it. Her crop looks normal but is usually mushy and soft, often small even when she always has food and water available.
Food/water: Oreo is fed ground(almost to a powder) corn, with a little ground layer pellets. We've fed all of our chickens this same diet as chicks and they grew up healthy and today are alive and healthy. But just to be safe, we stopped mixing in layer pellets so now she just eats ground corn, sometimes grass and pieces of food like bread for a snack, etc. We give her clean, non-chlorinated water and she drinks on her own. She also eats on her own.
Living space: Oreo's brooder box is located in the house. It is a simple plastic storage tub, with a lamp for light and warmth, a waterer, a food dish, an old sock that she likes to sleep on, and pine shavings. Because of incubator problems, she was the only egg that hatched and has lived alone(except for us taking her out often and some supervised interaction with the older chickens) ever since she hatched. She seems fine with this, since we give her lots of attention and she gets plenty of exercise. We hope to put her brooder box outside in our garage, nearby one of the chicken coops, once she gets older. It's pretty warm right now outside, but just in case, she will have a lamp still. After that we will slowly introduce her to her new flock of chickens that she will be living with when she gets older.
_______________________________
I'm not really worried about the sneezing, since it's just a little, dry sneeze once and a while and I think it could be caused from the dust from the pine shavings or maybe the ground corn might be getting stuck in her nostrils or something while she's eating. And her droppings seem normal except for being really runny at times. But I'm just really worried about how her crop seems to often be mushy and soft, and sometimes when we pick her up she will vomit a little (the vomit is usually runny. haven't noticed any blood in it).
I think we are going to switch her diet to grower feed from our local feed store. Maybe that's the problem.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
