Itchy baby chick????

[shanadienne]

I got some mail order chicks yesterday and this morning my gold laced polish chick is, for lack of a better term, tweaking out. She's preening her little wing feathers, and twisting her own wing around (and then screaming of course), stamping her feet the way chickens do when there is something crawling on them, scratching her face/beak, etc. It's like she's itchy all over. No sign of bugs and none of the other chicks are acting like this. Could she be having allergies (and does she need treatment???) or is itchiness-everywhere a symptom of something???

Their bedding is plain pine shavings.

 

[coach723]

If you can post a video, it would help, to be able to see what it's doing.
Polish are more suceptible to neurological issues due to the vaulted skull. So wondering if the banging around in the shipping box caused some head trauma to her. You can try giving some vitamin E and a b complex, which won't hurt anything, and might help.

 

[shanadienne]

Oh geeze, I hadn't even thought of the skull thing. She seems to have calmed down so maybe I was just overreacting (I've watched hundreds of chicks grow up and never seen that before) but I'll get a video if she does anything else weird.

I'll see about getting some vitamins in her.

Anything else I should be on the lookout for that would indicate neurological issues? I haven't owned a vaulted-skull crested bird in about 8 years. Both she and my buff laced polish chick seem to love sprinting long distances, they're verging on hyperactive whereas all the other chicks seem to be normal levels of curious about the world/occasionally getting the zoomies.

 

[coach723]

I don't have polish, so hopefully someone familiar with them will see this. It may be common behavior for the breed, I just have no experience with them. Hopefully there is nothing wrong and she'll be fine. Also could just be how she exhibited shipping stress.
This might be helpful:
https://poultrykeeper.com/keeping-chickens/diseases-common-to-polands/

 

[shanadienne]

Update: the itchiness had stopped shortly after I first posted but I just found the Polish under the brooder kinda comatose and discovered its yolk sac was kinda oozing yellow/wet. So, mushy chick disease I guess. She had a few gasps left in her when I found her but she's stopped breathing since.

So, acting like she's itchy all over = yolk sac infection???

 

[coach723]

I would contact where ever you got them from, they should replace or refund you, most do if it's within the first couple of days of receiving them when they are shipped. A chick with unabsorbed yolk sack should not be shipped. If omphalitis what was going on then infection might have caused the umbilicus to rupture and leak fluid.
I have never heard of that (itching) being a symptom of mushy chick disease, they usually just get sick and die, and have a swollen, mushy abdomen, swelling and redness around the umbilicus. Did the chick have a bad smell around the umbilicus?
I'm sorry for your loss.
I lost 3 of my shipped chicks this year, shipping is really hard on them.

 

[shanadienne]

Yeah, I'll let them know. She didn't smell bad or anything, she was totally fine yesterday afternoon eating and drinking and running around, we had handled her a little because she was so excited about the world around her (...or delirious?) and we never noticed anything off about her. I wouldn't blame the hatchery for missing whatever sign there might have been on Monday when they shipped.

I checked all the other chicks and their tummies are fluffy and dry, so I'm hoping that's the only one.

 

[shanadienne]

Welp, another Polish chick has started acting "itchy." Her umbilical area is fluffy, I can't even see anything there, but she did start to develop pasty butt. I'll try to get some vitamins/electrolytes in her and keep her vent clear but I really don't know what to think now.