Bobwhite chick flailing around and can't keep balance

[MRquail]

I had one chick hatch yesterday and everything thing seemed normal. It was wobbly on it's feet just like any other chick. However, this morning I noticed it was acting kind of strange. It shakes it's head and has a slight tremor in it's wings and can't stay on it's feet. It kind of flails around, almost like it's swimming. I read about splayed legs and I do believe that one is slightly splayed when it tries to walk but looks fine when it's standing still. Would a splayed leg also cause the strange swimming motion and head shaking? I tried using the cup method and the band-aid method to correct splayed legs but putting a bandaid around a squirmy chick is as hard as it sounds and I was worried about hurting it. The cup method worked this afternoon but I'm worried about leaving it overnight without access to water. Sorry for the long post, this is one of my first hatches and I'm still not sure if I'm doing everything correctly . I moved this one to a separate brooder so it wouldn't get pick on or walked over. Thank you!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

How's it doing?

 

[007Sean]

I had one chick hatch yesterday and everything thing seemed normal. It was wobbly on it's feet just like any other chick. However, this morning I noticed it was acting kind of strange. It shakes it's head and has a slight tremor in it's wings and can't stay on it's feet. It kind of flails around, almost like it's swimming. I read about splayed legs and I do believe that one is slightly splayed when it tries to walk but looks fine when it's standing still. Would a splayed leg also cause the strange swimming motion and head shaking? I tried using the cup method and the band-aid method to correct splayed legs but putting a bandaid around a squirmy chick is as hard as it sounds and I was worried about hurting it. The cup method worked this afternoon but I'm worried about leaving it overnight without access to water. Sorry for the long post, this is one of my first hatches and I'm still not sure if I'm doing everything correctly . I moved this one to a separate brooder so it wouldn't get pick on or walked over. Thank you!

Do you have any Nutri-Drench? You might try giving it a few drops 3 or 4 times a day, until it improves. You can also use it in it's regular drinking water.

 

[MRquail]

Sorry for the delayed answers! I've been busy introducing the older chicks to the original flock. Unfortunately we lost that chick. I hand fed him water with Save-a-chick and food. I also left food sprinkled around the brooder so I knew he could reach that as well. I believe at some point between my nightly check-ins he flipped over on his back and possibly broke or dislocated something trying to get himself back over. He would flip over like that alot and struggle until I got him back over. During the day I was always within earshot so it was easy to get to him quickly but at night when you're sleeping and in a different room it's hard to get there in time or even know that there's a problem. I did notice that he was really far behind the other chick that hatched at the same time. He was a lot smaller to begin with and was almost the exact same size on day 7 as he was when he first hatched, despite how much I tried feeding him. I've had three different batches in the incubator and taken everyone's advice and still only managed to hatch out a few chicks. I'm beginning to think it's a genetic issue within the parent birds and not necessarily an error in incubation. I have a dozen eggs in the incubator now and so far three are pipped. Hopefully some make it! It's very discouraging to keep having chicks make it to hatching day and just never end up hatching or hatching chicks that just aren't strong enough to make it. Thank you all for your advice and concern!