Help, don't have an incubator and I'm trying to keep a newborn chick alive

[Coops Dad]

Give it constant access to food and water; your best option for proper nutrition for the chick is get a bag of chick starter at your local feed store.

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

Give it constant access to food and water; your best option for proper nutrition for the chick is get a bag of chick starter at your local feed store.

Is there such a thing as a premature chick? You see it next to the others and I could swear it was premature by like two days, the feathers aren't as full, it's was quite weak at the legs and won't eat by itself just yet. I placed water in with it and did the dunking beak thing so that maybe it would go and drink, and it never did. In the morning it was just weak and still slept through out most of the day, so throughout the day I kept giving it water with the eye dropper and the food in the beak. By the afternoon it got stronger and was trying to jump out; I took it out to meet mom several times in the day. Mom and it's brothers/sisters recognized it right away, got close, chirped at it, etc, but the chick took a while to want to be close to them, couldn't leave it with them because they kept moving and left it alone and it would eventually get cold. So periodically I'd take it out, it would stop crying when it was with them. I'm hoping in the morning it'll be strong enough to join and follow them around. If need be we'll keep feeding and giving it water, but it it a whole of a lot better. Couldn't go into town to get the feed, but the corn flour, cooked black beans and tuna did very well; will definitely try to go get some chick feed, just hope they have some feed that' s more natural and not entirely synthetic. I like my chickens eating the most natural feed we can get.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll relay the end of the story later.

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

I'm happy to report that my chick in the toaster oven is doing great. It's eating from the toothpick still, but today I'll get it commercial chick feed and try to convince it to eat it and also try to convince it to drink water by itself (it did get really strong with the feed we made it). Thank you all for your advice, we'll make it a brooder and put it in, I'm hoping it'll be a she and that it grows big and healthy .