Chick pecking at air and not able to find drimk and food? Please help!!

[Kearaaaa23]

Hi everyone, this chick is a RIR and is 2 days old. She was born with a vitamin E deficiency and could not balance and stand and was always falling on its side. We gave her egg yolk with vitamin E supplements and electrolyte water and she perked up. Now she can walk around perfectly, running, flapping her baby wings, chirping etc... however she cannot find food and water properly. She'll put her head in attempt to find water but always misses and gives up. I have not seen her attempt to peck food. Randomly she'll start pecking the air or looking for something when food is near? I check her eyes and they appear completely normal, not blue or mishaped. Is this something that can be rectified? Is it Mareks disease? None of the other chicks from this same batch have this issue. Please help!!

 

[kattabelly]

I had one like this recently, only I think mine was a combination of hatching a bit early and what I suspect was mild omphalitis. It didn't really react to things like bright light or flicking my fingers right by its eyes. After a few days of syringe feeding it started pecking in roughly the right place when the others were eating, and a day or two after that it started managing to feed itself. It had its last syringe feed at a week old and now at ten days, it's half the size of the others but seems like it's pretty much caught up developmentally and doesn't seem to have any sight issues.

Not to say yours will do the same - it can be really hard to tell exactly what's wrong, especially at that age, and sometimes there's just nothing you can do. But it might have a chance.