Ouestion about day old sick chick.. Please help

[Chrissyc1]

I am a new (1st time) mommy to 10 chicks!!! I am very excited but a little nervous! (most of them are polish top hats, but the others, I am not sure about yet)

I have 2 issues....

1) I have 2 chicks that I helped out of there shell yesterday afternoon. After I did that they stayed in the incubator all night and this morning I have moved them to the brooder. Problem is... they look wet/sticky.. they are dry but are sticky looking... I think I helped them too soon...

(I know, bad idea to help... sorry) What can I do? My mother-in-law said I could use a hot wash cloth and try to wipe them down... will this work or does any one have any other suggestions. (also, should I seperate these from the rest of the babies?

2) I have 1 other chick (not the ones mentioned above) that hatched yesterday that has curled toes... how can you fix that? The chick is in the brooder with all the other babies.

All my other chicks look great.. but I could really use some help with these issues!!! Thank you sooooo much for any help you can give.

 

[jessica117]

If the sticky chicks didn't fluff up right, it is probably because they had a funky sticky membrane that they probably wouldn't have been able to get out of, so from my experience, I'd say you did the right thing by helping them. (I have just recently started having problems with sticky chicks. I usually have 1 or 2 out of a hatch that have a membrane that just "glues" to them. I lost the first couple chicks because I didn't help them.)

I would take your mother-in-law's advice and use a warm wash cloth to get them cleaned up (it may take a fair amount of warm water because that stuff is like glue and possibly a mild soap. I have used a little plain dawn way watered down in the past) then use a hair dryer on low to get them dried off and warm as quickly as possible.

As for the crooked toes

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2547943

There are links to some very useful pics and how to's on treating crooked toes.

If you choose to use the bandaid/tape option of treatment (which is what I use myself) I have found it useful to also treat for spraddle leg at the same time because the bandaid will be slippery and if you don't tie the legs together, you will end up with spraddle leg chick. This doesn't ALWAYS happen, but for me it happens more times than not, so I just try to prevent it before it happens.

Hope this helps!

 

[Chrissyc1]

Thank you so much for your response. I am going to try it now... I am going to try to fix a boot for the one chick and bathe the other two.

 

[jessica117]

Good luck and glad to help!