My chick doesn't like/ won't eat crumbles

Renaux

In the Brooder
Jul 5, 2019
9
11
22
I have a 3 day old turkey chick and she had spraddle leg but fortunately it healed quickly with the brace, she doesn't seem weak at all and loves to run around now but she doesn't like to eat her crumbles
She will peck at them but then like shake her head and fling it across the brooder lol
I put them on the floor instead of the feeding thing, still flings them
I tried crushing them to smaller pieces cause I thought maybe she wasn't eating cause they were big
Still doesn't wanna eat them
I even tried adding water and mushing it up
Nope
So far I've gotten her to eat scrambled eggs and small pieces of lettuce
Idk if she's just being stubborn or what
She pecks at everything and tries to eat stuff she can't so i think she is hungry
But just won't eat the friggen crumbles
20190709_185756.jpg

Here's a pic of her when she discovered my turtle hehe
I like to let her run around my room a few times a day since it's fairly warm in here (not for too long tho)

Thanks for any advice
 
Classic case of failure to thrive to me... some chicks are just too stupid. :hmm

She needs a helper chick or friend. Since you're it... pick the food up and tid bit for it. Run your finger through... these chicks in my experience become very discontent as they are slowly starving to death. If from my own stock, I cull them. Then again, I breed my birds and cull for splay leg too as I consider it genetic weakness and not incubation anomaly.

Do you have other poults to add it back to now it's leg is adjusted? Honestly, that never helped my babes that aren't connecting with the feed, but worth trying. Best I can suggest to prolong life and hope they get it is adding poultry nutri-drench to the water OR tube feeding until they figure it out. I don't tube feed and they usually go down hill fast as soon as switch to regular water when they are as you describe. I've hatched hundreds of (chicken) chicks. Only on rare occasion have I seen this... but I have seen it enough to recognize fully what you are describing and has lead me to the point of no one slowly dies on my watch. :barnie

:fl
 
So we have friends who are Turkey farmers (commercial farmers) and they lost half thier flock last year because the turkeys didnt like the flavor of food they got and stopped eating (supplier messed up not our friends experiment)...apparently turkeys can be extremely picky and rather starve than eat food they dislike the taste of...maybe try a different brand of food?
 
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Experience is teaching me that some chicks are just flat out stupid!
I always hatch at least a dozen to insure the brighter ones "show" the dumb ones how to eat.
The last batch of araucanas i hatched were particularly dense, i spent hours of one to one time with three of them tap tap tapping at crumb with a pencil to imitate a mam hen :he
 

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