I have a small brood of 19 Dominique chicks. I bought them from a local breeder. From the start one chick was much smaller than the rest. The guy had day old chickens as well as these one week chickens and I think one ended up with mine. All the others treated him the same though. I have had them for a week so they are two weeks old. Almost everyone has lost their fuzz and has lots of good feathers. I have two little guys who seem to be mostly fuzz still and one of them seems to be breathing a lot harder than the rest. And he stands up and sleeps a lot. He is still drinking/eating/preening but sometimes he has to be prodded a little to get him moving around. I held him up next to one of the other chicks and can see no difference in color of skin or beak. His eyes look fine and no discharge or pasty bottom. He just breaths heaver and seems to shudder a bit. It looks as though he might be gasping a little or doing something with his beak while he breaths but not obvious. Also he doesn't seem to be as noisy as the others when I hold him. He peeps one peep to brothers 25 peeps! But he is still just as hard to catch...lol I am feeding them un-medicated starter as I am trying to raise an organic flock as much as possible. I started out feeding Manna Pro (small bag) but had to switch brands because they didn't have it in a larger bag and my chicks went through that in like four days! I did the switch about 3 days ago and they don't seem to like the new feed as much. It was ALL over there floor. Also the symptoms with the chick just started last night. I am keeping them in a room in a large wire dog crate with a 60 watt bulb in the corner. The room is not air conditioned. It stays pretty warm in there and they tend to sleep away from the bulb or half way in between. Yesterday however I turned the bulb off when I was at work because I was afraid it would get too warm. I forgot about turning it back on until late last night and they were all huddles together underneath where it is usually on. They have fresh water twice a day. Straw in a card board box for their bed. No bedding in the other half of the crate. Iv been cleaning it out about every other day. I have put them outside in a protected area twice. The first time was their third day here and then again today. I offer them shade as well so they can be in the sun if they want to. Ok I think that is all the info you will need. Since I saw the chicks behavior I have been adding accidophilus to their water and just gave them some feed mixed with kefir. I also heard you can put garlic powder in their water and am thinking of doing that or adding minced garlic to their food. Any suggestions of a natural/at home remedy and what might be ailing the little guy (and possibly one other one) would be VERY much appreciated!!
I don't know what's wrong with your chick but I would isolate him from the others in case he has something contagious. When I want to save a particular chick that isnt thriving I put them in a plastic shoe box with a heat lamp. Sterilize the water twice a day, sometimes put a little sugar in the water and...along with the normal chick feed I put about 50 small mealworms and a little salad greens. My incubator got very dirty with an early hatcher that gooed up the rest, and I had also forgot to clean the top of the bator in ages consequently I had a couple of sicky chicks. One was teetering around with one eye shut and very weak. Something about seeing a mealworm triggered a more hearty appetite and after eating a few he is now the most vigorous chick I have.
