Baby the tiny bantam...day old chick from TSC, no interest in eating or drinking on her own..HELP!!

[onedoodle3]

How do you force feed a chick? Can you use a dropper to put food/fluid in their beak.

 

[onedoodle3]

Well, nothing we've tried has worked. She rallied a little this evening, but since then has been slowly fading. She won't even try to get a drink now from the lid we have her electrolytes & probiotics in. She's just not responding. She is softly cheeping every now and then but that has slowed down too. My DD is crying her heart out. She knows it is just a matter of time. I guess it was just not meant for this baby yo stay here. Thank you to everyone that responded. If we come into this situation again, we will try all these measures again. Thanks.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

.... I have been told to never dip a chicks beak in water but have no idea why....but I will try that. At this point, I'm willing to do anything to save her/him. Thanks!

All new hatched chicks have one basic instinct, and that instinct is to peck at everything in its environment that is small enough to eat. Any chick that isn't pecking at something in its environment is in my humble opinion not going to make it. It just doesn't have any interest in living. The reason you don't want to immerse a chicks bill in water is that they may breath in water and get aspirated pneumonia or COPD. The lungs of birds are delicate.

Fence off enough room in the brooder box (a small box without a top or bottom will do) to give the peep some temporary room of its own at least at feeding time but don't isolate it. One other chick in this play pen may help give baby an idea about what food is for. If it has a commutable disease it has already infected its brooder mates anyway. Always put green food dye in new chicks water and give the peep a teaspoon of well crumbled hard boiled egg and the some amount of DRY old fashion oat meal. Gently look at the chick's abdomen and see if it still has the sack of egg yoke attached to its navel area. If it does DON'T mess with it, if it is infected get back to us. Keep its surroundings at 90 or so degrees, in this case maybe a little higher. Each week reduce the temperature in the brooder by 5 degrees.

I noticed that you didn't have any gravels or marbles in your chicks' water fountain. New chicks, will go skinny dipping in their drinking water if given half a chance and this leads to all kinds of problems and the smaller the chick the bigger the problems. Baby may have gotten wet and chilled from wading in her drinking water or even tried to go scuba diving. What was he or she like when you brought him home? Give all your peeps some DRY old fashion oat meal, and a little buttermilk twice a day and in 4 or 5 days substitute canary seed or steel cut oats for the old fashion oats to go along with the chick starter but keep up the boiled egg and buttermilk, oh and a little chick grit. In fact I give chick grit 24 hours before I give my chicks their first meal. They will peck and scrach at chick sized grit with gusto and end up eating enough of it to give them a good start in life. I like to feed chick grit on a small (10 by 10 inch or so) peice of cardboard. The resolution on the Video was bad but the food in the chicks bowl looked large to me. A chick has a reserve of food from the egg yoke it hatched from. This food is stored in the chick's navel sack or pouch. There is enough there to last three or four days and this food reserve needs to be exhausted before they begin eating. Good luck.

If anyone is curious about why I recommended green drinking water it is because in the natural environment of the red jungle fowl standing water is usually green and I think green drinking water stops some chicks from swimming in their drinking water. Then if a chick is guilty of skinny dipping at least he is marked green and you can also see if your chicks have found their water by looking at their faces. This alone may save many chicks from an untimely death if it disuades a new chick owner from dipping his or her chicks' face in their chick fountian.

 

[onedoodle3]

Thanks Chickengeorgeto. I will definitely make changes in the brooder. My camera isn't the best, so I apologize for the bad filming. The chick food is some I bought at TSC. It's Dumor chick food. The other biddies have no problem eating. They have grit now as well as our 2 1/2 week old chicks. I will be giving the older ones some veggies and fruits starting tomorrow (have to go to the grocery store first).

Our Baby did not make it. She died at 10:58 last night in my DD's hand. She has been crying all night and day. We buried her today. But I will make changes in the way we have our little ones.


Thank you to everyone that posted what I needed to do. It is really appreciated.