EMERGENCY! Baby Chick In Trouble!

[Lady Bee]

Please help! One of my newborn chicks looks like he has some of his yolk sack/intestines out. What should I do? ANY help at all would be sooo appreciated. He is leaving reddish liquid when he tries to walk and before I started holding him was peeping loudly. If you have any questions or want better pics or have any advice PLEASE leave a comment!

Thank you so much,
LadyBee

 

[Lady Bee]

BUMP!

Any tips or comments would be much appreciated!

 

[WI FarmChick]

I am sorry to hear this. Your chick is going to have a rough time. I researched here on BYC and this is what I have found. I do not know if this is the correct thing to do.
you might consider put your chick down.
Good luck.

Most will tell you to leave it alone and it will reabsorb. That has not been my experience. The chick will give himself a hernia by stepping on the egg sac that will be difficult to stuff back in. This will look like a loop of intestine is hanging out as well as the egg sac which will blacken with time. The other chicks will instinctively peck at it and give the chick a slow miserable death if not isolated. If the chick has a hernia he will probably die, even if isolated in about 3 days. I would cut off the egg sac and cauterize the stump immediately or clamp it for 30 minutes especially since its already broken. The dangling mess he is dragging around is inviting infection and will almost certainly be stepped on pulling out things that won't go back in and making life impossible. I would also dip his bill in sugar water and keep him warm and isolated. Very tiny amounts of sugar water will keep him going.

 

[JWinoski]

The same thing happened to my chick just two days ago only more of his intestines were hanging out. I left him alone for 12 hours, took off the blackened yolk sac, then left it alone for an additional 8 hours, the chick started to get weaker, I had him drink sugar water but it had trouble doing that as well. I'm not one for putting chicks down but I felt like it was the best thing I could do for him, I didn't want him to suffer any more. I didn't come home until my family let him go and buried him for me. I hope your chick has a better chance than mine did, just keep a good watch on it and if it doesn't dry up then chances aren't too good. I've also read that you could try to push it back in with a q-tip but be extremely careful with that. Fingers crossed for you and your chick!

 

[Busybee1]

How is the chick doing?

I had one that had the ambilical cord wrapped around its leg pulling on its abdomen. The chick was one week old. I though it had a bum leg until I looked more closely. The cord was pulling on the adbomen and when I poked around dark orange liquid came from where the cord was attached. It was a fair amount of liquid. The cord was dry so I cut it off. There was a small hole in its adbonen that oozed for a couple hours.

The next day the chick was lethargic and did not want to eat. I bought some chick start vitamins and fed it by dropper every 2 hours. I put it by itself because the other chicks were running over it. The next day I added another chick with it to get her to eat some hard boiled egg. Finally after seeing the one chick eat it began to eat.

I think you have a chance. It should dbe clear within a couple days whether the chick will recover or not. Good luck!!

 

[WI FarmChick]

this is from farmtotable she said it better than I could. this goes for chicks too. i am so sorry.

You can do one of two things - 1) let nature take its course, because weak ducklings usually grow up into weak ducks with lots of physical problems or 2) make sure there's enough food and water available that the weak duckling isn't having to fight for resources with the bigger stronger ducklings, or you could even separate the brood, depending on how many you have (you can't have a lone duckling, they get really stressed). For me personally, the only time I've ever culled a sick duckling or chick is when it was obviously struggling. I look at it as a quality of life issue - if it seems to be alert and happy, I will do whatever I can to help it thrive. But if it seems weak, lethargic, and just basically uninterested in living, then I will cull it because to me it's cruel to allow it to suffer, when in nature it would have died right away.