Injured/Sick chick

[definit]

Yesterday I began to notice how runty one of my chicks was compared to the others that I had all received last Wednesday. I thought at first it was maybe because the bigger chicks were shoving her aside from the food and water but then I noticed her injury on her side. I don't know how she got it as I haven't noticed any aggressive pecking..



When I quarantined her (to avoid having her get trampled by the bigger chicks given her tendency to huddle with them) and gave her her own food and water she pecked a bit at the food but that was it. She is very listless. Her wings look very droopy and she just keeps chirping I guess because she is lonely. I ended up putting the box she is in inside the brooder with the rest so she won't feel as lonely.



Any help or advice would be really appreciated.. especially if it can save her. My grandma is strongly suggesting I cull her.

 

[Uniontown Poultry]

If her injury was one where blood was drawn, I'd recommend putting some blue-kote, wonderdust, flowers of sulfur, blood-stop powder, or even pine tar on the injury. My sister's a breeder, and she occasionally sends me chicks that have been pecked pretty nasty - even injuries you would not think they can come back from they often do, and amazingly - some topical injury remedy and isolation usually does the trick. If she's been picked on, her listlessness may be a stress reaction. Keep her isolated from the rest of the chicks, except one. Pick the weakest, smallest, least aggressive chick and put it in with her. If it tries to pick her, put a diversion in there for it - a wedge of lettuce, half an apple, a melon rind, a Pecker Wrecker, a Baby-Kake, or -believe it or not- a piece of styrofoam. If you have some poultry electrolytes, it may not be a bad idea to mix them up and offer them to your little chick. Try and coax her to eat something (a chopped hard-boiled egg, pieces of melon). Melon is particularly good for them bc it has so much water & chicks dehydrate easily. It has some carbohydrates too, and this may help perk her up. As for the chirping, I am guessing lonely, or cold, or both. Make sure she's got the same amount of heat as the others, and give her a buddy (if there is no suitable buddy, a mirror will have to do). You may still lose her, because there could be so many things afoot - the others may have been bullying her away from the food and water, for some time. But if you try your best, you can take comfort in knowing you did everything you could. Hope this helps!