Help! Tips for rescuing a day old chick

[Bovrilelle]

We found our youngest chick very limp, close to death this afternoon, trampled by mum and siblings with a mouth full of litter and eyes shut. We rushed her into the house and tried to get the litter out of her mouth - she was retching we think- so gave her some sugary water and olive oil with a pipette and no retching since.

Her eyes are now open, we have her in a cardboard tray on a hot water bottle under a desk lamp and monitoring temperature with a cooking thermometer (!) she's at 90f though still very roly poly....legs are looking a bit weak and all over the place and she is nigh on constantly chirping at an ear piercing volume! she's pecked at a bit of chick crumb and mashed boiled egg, and been a bit unimpressed with the cider vinegar water we tried to give her on a spoon too!

Is there any more we can do for her? She has made a remarkable improvement in just 2 hours but we're novices and are worrying about whether she'll need darkness tonight to sleep. How can we help strengthen her legs and what about re-introducing her to mum?

We have a broody maran who only has one egg due any day now .... Are we better off sneaking sicky Chicky under her instead??

Any tips, ideas or improvements would be gratefully received

Els

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry
for spraddle leg (splay leg)

http://www.poultryhelp.com/spraddle.html

I wouldn't give her to a broody hen...that is risky as she may get rejected. I'd fix her legs and put her back in with mom.

Keep in mind she may get injured again but her best chance is with her mom as they know each others' voices.

Just my opinion!

You only have a few days to correct spraddle leg.

 

[Bovrilelle]

Thank you CaS! Had a good look at Spraddle link and not 100% sure that's what's going on. The joints aren't splaying out from the hip, more not strong enough to straighten from the middle. Don't think it's a slipped tendon either! Will try elastoplasting the knee joints today and see if that helps.

Thank you for your help and advice - keen to get her back under mummy ASAP

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/217/vitamin-b2-deficiency
maybe this is what you are referring to???

You didn't mention curled toes, but they do go down on their hocks.

You might want to try giving it some poultry vitamins (from the feed store) just in case if your chick looks like the above picture...I have read this isn't supposed to start until 1 week old though. But if you can't find another answer it can't hurt to try.

There is such a thing as crooked toes from incubation temperatures (in which case the vitamins won't help). I don't know if this would also cause what you are describing. Here's a link:

http://poultrykeeper.com/skeletal-and-muscular-disorders/crooked-toes
http://poultrykeeper.com/skeletal-and-muscular-disorders/curled-toes
this second link describes riboflavin deficiency

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/206930.htm

I don't know what is wrong with your chick...just wanted you to have these links in case you needed them.

 

[Bovrilelle]

Thank you again, had a good read - its so hard to be sure what's going on as her symptoms are very 'mild' compared to all these pics. No curled toes so that's a blessing, she can plant her foot properly, just short bursts of weighbearing and that's with our help! I think we'll call the vets today - she's not getting any bigger, peeping CONSTANTLY (wondering if it's because she's in pain) elastoplast hobbles and physio doesn't really seem to be helping.....so frustrating :-(

Very concerned we're just delaying the inevitable and shouldn't have interfered n the first place, but becoming very attached now....