Day-Old Chick breathing heavy

[CrosstheRoad]

Hello all! background first:

Bought two new-born Golden Comets to keep our lone wyandotte from a bad incubator batch from being so sad and lonely. bought from a local hatchery with good ratings.
All was going well until we noticed one of the Golden Comets is acting unwell. Wings are drooped down, rapid breathing (panting) and it's heart rate seems elevated.

No other symptoms like gunky eye or dripping around nostrils. No pasty butt. Chick drinks water and eats (seen it do so). Brooder temp is right at 95 degrees, Just not very active, fairly lethargic. Moves around some, but stands still a moment and looks upward slightly while breathing. Chick is not too small, seems larger than the other two.

Crop felt squishy, not too full. It's sister is healthy and active (born same day and from same hatchery). Sick one does not shy away from us, ever climbs on outstretched hand for "rides." It still breathes hard when laying down (sometimes not as hard). Plumage is full and healthy looking healthy and dry. Only a day-old (ours is 3 days old).

We have given it some VetRx and watching it carefully.

Could something be caught in it's throat? Know of the olive oil treatment, is it too young for that? How about massaging the throat?

Could only one chick of the two new ones have a respiratory disease? Should we separate and apply more VetRx or the saline in eyes? Maybe feed it some greens?

Or could it be a untreatable birth defect in it's respiratory system? (we know what might have to be done in this case. we don't want to see it suffer).

sorry for the lengthy post, but thanks for any help!

 

[Naliez]

We had what sounds like a very similar Barnevelder day old. From the start, heavy breathing, very lethargic at times, but normal eating/drinking/pooping habits. He fell very behind on development w/strange feather growth, but his brooder mates never picked on him and he still played a bit, so we kept them together. It seemed obvious that it was a genetic defect rather than some kind of infection. He lived 6 weeks. At the end, he got very bloated over the course of 2 days and started gasping. I suspect he had pulminary edema or some other major system failure. We tried everything, but sometimes there is nothing you can do.

This was right before he passed. We kept him inside with the little ones because it was too cold for him outside. You can see at 6 weeks old, he is very underdeveloped and his "wings" stuck straight out. Very strange. If yours doesn't seem to be suffering, and you rule out infection, you could give him a little extra TLC until nature takes its course. Sorry I'm not more help.