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- #11
Some of the chicks recently developed balance problems. I think this was caused by them eating bedding (bog standard wood shavings) which blocked up the crop and stopped them from getting enough energy and energy.
I started by massaging their crops and feeling some home made electrolyte solution (5ml salt, 10ml sugar and 5ml apple cider vinegar in 1 litre of water) from a pipette because water was more likely to get through than any actual food and give them a bit of an energy boost. That definitely worked as they perked up and the crops started getting softer and smaller. So I then got them to eat some extra grit (they're on chick crumb which normally does not need supplemental grit) and yoghurt. Again, lots of improvement.
But as they generally started improving, they also started losing balance while walking. So now I'm adding child vitamins (iron free) at a rate which corresponds to the correct dosage based on weight. My plan is to give them vitamins every other day in their water and keep feeding yoghurt for a week to see whether that helps fix the problem.
I'm still using electrolyte water, but only giving that every other time that I top up the waterer as it can do more harm than good if used too often. They also had hard boiled egg before I was able to pick up the vitamins as that supposedly contains everything that they need.
They're still very active, just really unbalanced. Whatever the problem is, it's only affecting the heavy breed (Light Sussex) and not the light breed (Cream Legbars).
I started by massaging their crops and feeling some home made electrolyte solution (5ml salt, 10ml sugar and 5ml apple cider vinegar in 1 litre of water) from a pipette because water was more likely to get through than any actual food and give them a bit of an energy boost. That definitely worked as they perked up and the crops started getting softer and smaller. So I then got them to eat some extra grit (they're on chick crumb which normally does not need supplemental grit) and yoghurt. Again, lots of improvement.
But as they generally started improving, they also started losing balance while walking. So now I'm adding child vitamins (iron free) at a rate which corresponds to the correct dosage based on weight. My plan is to give them vitamins every other day in their water and keep feeding yoghurt for a week to see whether that helps fix the problem.
I'm still using electrolyte water, but only giving that every other time that I top up the waterer as it can do more harm than good if used too often. They also had hard boiled egg before I was able to pick up the vitamins as that supposedly contains everything that they need.
They're still very active, just really unbalanced. Whatever the problem is, it's only affecting the heavy breed (Light Sussex) and not the light breed (Cream Legbars).
