Hello everyone. Just last weekend I picked up from my local feed store 6 chics all believed to be about a week old give or take a day among the three breeds I selected. 2 barred rocks, 2 red sex links and 2 white leghorns. All of them seem to be very healthy/normal except for 1 of the barred rocks. This isn't my first time with raising babies I currently have some 3 year old hens so this 1 chics behavior is something I haven't seen before. She is a runt. Out of her breed she was by far the smallest at the store out of 20 or so. Proabably why we picked her, she's so cute. At home in the brooder right away we notice she just isn't as active as the other 5. She seems to be eating and drinking fine even after 5 days now but she still isnt active at all. If she's not eating, drinking or pooping she's sleeping and usually by standing up and slowly nodding her way to the ground. She doesn't flinch or try and run when you go to pick her up like the others she doesn't seem interested in pecking the ground like the others either. She has some pasty butt i guess you would call it that we clean everyday very easily by a short dunk in some warm water but I've seen her poop which seems normal enough just that it's sticking to her fur. Today we have since isolated her into her own area because her little self kept getting trampled by the more active larger chicks. We thought we would put her with her sister in another bin but the sister jumps on the side and escapes back to the other four within minutes. We could but a lid on it but the little one doesn't seem to mind being alone. The picture below shows her with her "sister" next to my car key for reference. What do you all think? Sorry for the long post just trying to be as detailed as possible. Thank you, Jonathan
Give her some vitamin water with electrolytes. She needs to eat more. Vit with electro should give her an energy boost so she does start eating more. For whatever the initial reason, and some just don't thrive well, she's not been eating enough. You need to get her to so she grows. Not that she'll ever be as big as the others but can't waste away and needs to be large/active enough to be with the others.
this happened to one of my black sex links as well. I took and eyedropper and some warm sugar water, gently opened there beak, and squirted it in. Do it every so often (we did it twice). It worked and she began eating and drinking all by herself and today she is big and strong (only 6 weeks but...).
