poopy butt and not eating.

[sarahswank]

One of my silkie bantam chicks had serious poopy butt. I dont know how long he had it for because someone who supposedly knew chickens were watching them for attleast 3 days now. I think I got it all off, and He passed a very very small amount of soft poop, but I am trying to figure out.. do they have like a little tail on the back end? I am guessing so so I didnt mess with it too much, but if not, then I still have a chunk to get off.

Now the worst part is, no one has seen this chick eat or drink in 2 days. he also is definately smaller then the other silkie chick who used to be the same size, so his growth has stopped...

Any ideas? the only plain yogurt I have is greek yogurt, but if he isnt eating, it will not do any good. He does chirp... almost constantly compared to all the other chicks...

I am thinking he got pasty butt from tempurature flucuations and being a bit chilled, I have fixed that.

 

[Haunted55]

One of my silkie bantam chicks had serious poopy butt. I dont know how long he had it for because someone who supposedly knew chickens were watching them for attleast 3 days now. I think I got it all off, and He passed a very very small amount of soft poop, but I am trying to figure out.. do they have like a little tail on the back end? I am guessing so so I didnt mess with it too much, but if not, then I still have a chunk to get off.

Now the worst part is, no one has seen this chick eat or drink in 2 days. he also is definately smaller then the other silkie chick who used to be the same size, so his growth has stopped...

Any ideas? the only plain yogurt I have is greek yogurt, but if he isnt eating, it will not do any good. He does chirp... almost constantly compared to all the other chicks...

I am thinking he got pasty butt from tempurature flucuations and being a bit chilled, I have fixed that.

I am no expert but this little one needs some help now. If you have Sav-a-Chick, give that to him, even if you have to put a drop on or in his beak to make him take it in. Keep at this. I have saved a number of chicks this way. Work intensive but it will work. Are the chicks normally getting medicated feed?

 

[sarahswank]

Some good news... Chick has finnally passed two larger poos without straining. It feels as if there is also something in it's crop also, so hopefully it is eating and not just stuck there. No idea if it is drinking yet, but since it is in an isolation box with the healthy silkie chick, I am hoping it will begin doing it. I did notice that it st

the chick is active and bright eyed still, and the chirpping is lessened a bit, so hopefully all will be well. My only worry left is that NO ONE has EVER seen this chick lay or sit down. It constantly stands to even sleep. It almost appears as if his legs are a little too upright when he stands, and there is almost no bend at the "backwards knee"/ankle joint. I do know he can flex it in though because when I flipped him over to slightly wash his tummy from the poop, he pulled it in a bit.

 

[sarahswank]

I am no expert but this little one needs some help now. If you have Sav-a-Chick, give that to him, even if you have to put a drop on or in his beak to make him take it in. Keep at this. I have saved a number of chicks this way. Work intensive but it will work. Are the chicks normally getting medicated feed?

No sav-a-chick on hand, They open at 10 am tommorrow at the earliest. Is sugar water a good subsititute to get him though the night? Wal-mart is of course open, so if there is something else important I can temporarily mix-in I will do it. I am willing to do what I have to to help the poor guy. I am so Flipping mad about them not even telling me he looked like that until I came back and was standing in the house... I feel I atleast owe it to this guy to give him a chance. (and even though I feel there is some good news, I would rather "force" him to try and eat/drink a bit more.)

Yes, I have him and all my chicks are medicated chick starter (Brand is MannaPro). (I hope it is a decent brand, they always produced quality product for calves, but I dont know about chicks... yet.)

They are all housed indo on unprinted news print paper that gets changed daily.

 

[Haunted55]

No sav-a-chick on hand, They open at 10 am tommorrow at the earliest. Is sugar water a good subsititute to get him though the night? Wal-mart is of course open, so if there is something else important I can temporarily mix-in I will do it. I am willing to do what I have to to help the poor guy. I am so Flipping mad about them not even telling me he looked like that until I came back and was standing in the house... I feel I atleast owe it to this guy to give him a chance. (and even though I feel there is some good news, I would rather "force" him to try and eat/drink a bit more.)

Yes, I have him and all my chicks are medicated chick starter (Brand is MannaPro). (I hope it is a decent brand, they always produced quality product for calves, but I dont know about chicks... yet.)

They are all housed indo on unprinted news print paper that gets changed daily.

Sugar water will work until you can get something else. If you had vitamins without iron, you could crush one and disolve it in water. Guessing here but I would say 2 cups, then give him drops of that. Not the best but it would help. This should keep for 24 hrs. so just something to get you through. I also would give this everyother time you give the water. Water is more important than the vitamins right now. Getting him to drink more important than anything. If you do a search for Casportpony or Dawg53, you will find many postings where they explain the best way to get the fluids into birds. Myself, all I've ever done is put one drop at a time one, or inside their beak and let them swallow that before giving the next.

As for the rest of it, let's get him drinking before you worry about that.

 

[sarahswank]

Just an update. (With good news!)

After two drops of sugar water right on his beak, the chick actually pecked the dropper and as long as I kept it squeezed out as a drop, he took it by himself... (it was such a relief to see him want to even peck, I wanted to jump for joy!) I didnt feel like he got enough though, but he started refusing the dropper and moving away from it, so I didnt force anymore. I decided to sleep next to his temporary home and every time I could hear him up and peeping like night, I gave him another drop or two to try and slowly rehydrate and keep his energy up (probably did this 4 or 5 times in the night). The best thing came at about 3am this morning though... I could hear them walking around and atleast one pecking at the food.. I peeked over, expecting it to be the healthy one only, and instead I found my sick chick was eating right along with his buddy. At another point later in the night, I peeked in and saw the sick chick take atleast two drinks out of the water bowl.

This morning I found him laying down but he easily hopped up when I called the chicks over and scattered a bit more food for them to hunt around for. Weither it is good or bad that he finnally layed down, it is atleast nice to know there isnt a painful or malformed leg compounding the problem. He has a bit of crustyness building up again, but that was easily taken care of. I gave him a bit more sugar water from the dropper for a last bit of pick me up... I think I am going to let him try and take care of his self for the day in the way of eating and drinking, and see how his crop feels this evening when I go to check his back end again. I will be picking up Sav-a-chick when they open, and put it in the waterer.

 

[Haunted55]

Isn't it awful what we do for our birds? Lol! I'd say this is wonderful news and you'd be safe to let him try on his own and check later. I'm so happy for you!

 

[seminolewind]

I cut the little dirty down/feathers off., Then coat a bit with olive oil

 

[Haunted55]

I cut the little dirty down/feathers off., Then coat a bit with olive oil

That'll help.

 

[sarahswank]

Ok. another update.. maybe not as happy.

He is up and interacting more then usual (although he does have an obsession with his reflection in the mirror and will ignore the other chick to stand beside "himself"). He does still peck at food and drink a sip of water every now and then, so I slowly offered the sugar water less and less and he has now not had any for 12 hours. His crop doesnt really feel like it is filling much though only like the size of a small dried pea. I am comparing it to his buddy in the same box who is the same breed and the same age, but a bit larger, and the difference is definately signicant. I am definately keeping close eye on his overall energy level for now. All the stores were closed yesterday, so today is the first day he has been offered a bowl of fresh water and a bowl of sav-a-chick (it has both the electrolytes and probiotics packets in it.) I figure atleast offering it for 2 or 3 days cant hurt. His constant din of chirping has gone down much more since I turned on a radio for the past 2 days... I guess he likes to just be talked too. His vent is still getting covered up every 12 hours atleast. I tried the olive oil, and his butt has already been defluffed, but it still builds up.

The only concern I still have is that his poop is still a bit off. It has a very mustardy color, and more liquidly then having a form to it. (Which is why I think it is still managing to dry in almost layers under the vent until it builds up.) I figure this is because he was not eating for a while, but is there a sort of time line when I should start worrying that there is more going on?

(I am reaching that point of wanting to do more, but knowing that somethings just take time to fix... I just need some reassurance weither I am silly to still be worrying, or if I need to keep looking for possible secondary issues also happening)