Help! 6 day old chick all of a sudden sick

[azygous]

Good suggestion from @Ais . Yeah, this chick can't handle get soaked. But the Epsom salts would do some good if give orally. The proportions are half a teaspoon of the magnesium sulfate dissolve in a half cup warm water.

This has the advantage of flushing everything from the crop to the vent if you can syringe a decent amount into the chick.

This chick is suffering from constipation, I believe. At this point, it will die if the blockage isn't cleared soon. Here is a diagram of the proper way to syringe liquids into the crop.

 

[Iluveggers]

I always buy a pack of puppy pads at the dollar store for the first 2 weeks to use as bedding. Nothing they can accidentally ingest and easy to observe poops. Then they know what food is and bedding can be changed. The pack was only $5.

 

[azygous]

If the older chickens were to get sick from the coffee bedding they'd be showing signs of it. i doubt it's going to be an issue with them.

I use sand in my coops and runs. Have been for over ten years. I love it. My chickens love it. It's easy to maintain. I brood my chicks on sand in the run. I've been doing it for ten years. Chicks love the sand and they eat it.

Fortunately, sand is the right size for chick grit, so the first thing my new chicks do is eat sand and it nicely kits out their gizzards, and once the gizzards are well equipped, the chicks lose interest in eating the sand. They continue to consume it as the sand in their gizzards is pooped out, but not at the rate they did when just a few days old. The huge benefit of this early consumption of sand grit is that chicks have no digestive issues, and they can safely eat just about anything from the end of the first week forward.

Some sand isn't suitable for chicks such as play sand which is too fine and has too much silica in it. I use cheap construction sand straight from the gravel yard in town. It has a variety of sizes of grit in it so all ages of chickens can use it for grit.

The thing about sand, though, is it's miserable when wet. It can really stink. But my run is covered and enclosed, so it rarely gets wet. But folks in very wet climates may not be happy with it.

 

[Harmoni]

You have nothing to lose at this point. Try the swaddling in warm towels and more oil. It's a final "Hail Mary" attempt. I'm as sad about this poor little chick as you are. Try these last things. If they work, that would be wonderful, but I expect your chick to die before morning.

Thanks. I don't have the heart to cull this one, so hopefully she isn't suffering tremendously. I'm doing the oil now.

 

[Harmoni]

Oh, no. Do you mean she died and she appeared to revive before she actually died? We lost her?

I thought she was going to be gone by morning. She's still lethargic, but somehow still alive. She did poop a little too. I'm going to try some egg yolk and see if that helps. I honestly don't know how she made it through the night.

 

[Iluveggers]

Try just raw egg yolk. Mix it up, dip your finger in, and put it right up to her beak 4-5 times or until she stops swallowing. Do this every 15-20 minutes. Egg yolk is the best nutrition a baby chick can get to revive them.

 

[Jeanw]

What a miracle, I’m really praying she pulls through!

 

[Harmoni]

We have poop! But she is still basically listless

 

[Harmoni]

Her crop still looks really full

 

[azygous]

It's not the crop that killed her. When a chicken dies, crop contents leak out.

It was likely the bedding that she consumed that caused her to be blocked.

I'm sorry we lost her. It was a grueling uphill battle.