Is it just yawning????

[Rose98]

I have a four day old that is refusing to eat or drink, it just stands with its eyes shut. The temp is right, the other chicks are all running around very lively, they can move away from the heat if they want.
Yesterday i noticed that it stands with its head up and every few minutes opens and shuts its mouth a few times in a row, and sneezes although it hardly opens its eyes...
I also took is out of the heat to try and give it some water through the dropper and it continued to do it away from the heat.
Is it possible it is just yawning or is it something more????
Any help is appreciated....

 

[chooks4life]

That's not yawning, it may be an attempt to release gases from buildup internally. This may be due to a blocked gut or bad feed. It may have a bacterial overload. How long has it been refusing to eat or drink?

Best wishes.

 

[Rose98]

It has been refusing to feed today and yesterday, it just stood all day with its eyes shut. I managed to get it to eat a few tiny drops of egg yolk and and little bit of water from a dropper but it vomited it straight up....
It did a very runny green/yellow before i tried to feed it....
is their anything i can do to help this little guy????
Thank you very much.

 

[Rose98]

It is more interested in food and water this morning but vomited again last night.....
Is there nothing i can do to help it???

 

[chooks4life]

Oh, sorry, was very busy and forgot about this site.

The vomiting indicates an internal blockage, from eating something inedible or too large or from congenital defect. They don't vomit, in the way we do, though food can spill over once they're clogged up. Still, it's pooping, so we assume something is getting through. After all the yolk sac has been digested/absorbed by now but perhaps those poops are from that.

Both green and yellow poops generally indicate the liver is in trouble but could be from a sick bird of various descriptions because the liver is involved in all illness.

I assume it was eating well to begin with? Or are you not sure?

What are they eating? What is their bedding and environment --- is there anything they could swallow?

Is it drinking by itself, or eating, at all? (I assume it's drinking because it'd be dead by now otherwise though).

How often is it pooping?

Last question, sorry but asking questions is necessary... Can you feel its crop and see if it's full and hard, or has anything hard in it? Checking if the crop is emptying properly is often easiest done by isolating the animal in a separate area, with water but no food, and checking first thing in the morning if its crop has emptied. It also helps you get an estimate of whether it's pooping regularly or not.

Please let me know what you find.

If the crop is hard first thing in the morning, and full, it definitely has a blockage, which may be due to an object, impacted mass or deformity in the bowels, stomach, or crop, and surgery or putting it down would be the only solutions there unfortunately. Chicks that don't eat don't last long. Giving it olive oil or some other oil orally, either now or if you think it's blocked up in the morning, may shift a blockage. But if it vomits everything, that's unlikely to work.

Best wishes.

 

[Rose98]

Thanks for your help....but it died last night, went to check on it before i went to bed and it was dead with its beak in a pool of vomit...

Poor little chicken, thanks again.

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry to hear that.

Best wishes.

 

[enola]

Don't think you did anything wrong....sounds like the chick was suffering from failure to thrive. Sorry about your loss.

 

[chooks4life]

Yeah, from the start this sounded more likely to be probably a congenital deformity at fault than anything else. Case in point, the rest of the chicks doing fine. When just one goes down it is generally not a husbandry fault.

 

[Rose98]

Thanks everyone....