lethargic chick with labored breathing

[hwally]

I live down in Mexico in a small village with out a vet. We have some very small chickens the locals call Costa Ricans. They have three chicks about three weeks old. A couple days ago I noticed one was off by itsself. It's breathing is labored and upon examination I could see that it had circles around it's eyes where it had lost feathers. It can still run away and move around and it is pecking at the ground like it's eating. They roost in a tree and are pretty much free range. Please help. Thhank you

 

[Jenski]

hwally, what are you feeding them? What is your weather like? How about droppings ~ can you tell what their appearance is like?

Very young birds are susceptible to a wide variety of illnesses, so it will take some detective work to narrow it down. One of my first guesses if you have older birds with younger birds might be coccidiosis. Please keep us posted. Good luck!

 

[hwally]

Hello Jenski, We're feeding them a chicken food we buy here. It is ground corn with other seeds mixed in. It's about all available. Most people here don't feed their chickens. The chicks are with their mother, a rooster and another hen. They are pretty much free to roam. We keep clean water for them. The weather now is in the 80's and cool at night (60's). They have shade. We've had chickens for a few years and haven't seen this before. I haven't seen the droppings. They're all over the place and hard to watch.