shamorunner
Chirping
- Mar 11, 2024
- 81
- 74
- 93
Rhea chick general care
On feeding, here are the two diets I personally recomend and can vouch for from using them myself
-Mazure ratite starter, salt with selenium for half the diet and the other half grazing/looking for insects in the forage (costlier and tougher to do as not everyone also has the space or the time to allow proper grazing)
-Unmedicated chick starter topped with rooster booster crumbs, liquid human b suppliment in the water (I do not have an exact dosage at the moment) (I still recomend salting with selenium salt, IN the same way you would salt a fried egg)
-I do a combination by using the unmedicated chick starter, sprinkled rooster booster and salted with selenium salt. I put b suppliment into the water and let them graze 30min-2h each day. I give them about half of a hard boiled egg in the morning and the other half in the evening per chick with the whites of it broken up. Any injured, slow growing, or chicks not eating or not eating enough are hand fed as well as hand fed duckweed for a few days, they normally pick things up on their own after that. The hand feeding has to be done when other issues have arisen, see some below topics that bring it up
Make sure your chick has plentiful access to forage, fodder, greens, and/or flies (dead and alive and ideally larger flies like army flies or flies from roadkill as they are larger)
If a chick is by itself, buy a couple chicken chicks to put with it. A lonely chick is liable to starve itself due to the stress of being alone at a young age, especially while it is still learning to eat and drink
If a chick has an enlarged area at the base of its neck, this is sour crop. Stop feeding any fruit, foods high in starcges/sugars, and put onto a heavy protein diet of which hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, and insects is best. The sour crop is almost always caused a Yeast overgrowth due to a sudden change in diet. Parasites can cause it, but that is an outlier and harder to treat in time for a bird that is being starved due to yeast devouring more of its food before it can be properly digested. Massage the area from top to bottom to help pass food. If it isn't passing at all, then this is most likely impaction, I do not have any feasible solution for impaction unless you are competent enough to Perform a surgery and stitch the chick back up of which there is low success if really young due to the chick still not know how to eat/drink, energy demands to grow and be healthy, as well as the high cost for a veterinarian to do the surgery that would normally be the same cost or multiples of getting a new chick. If you are dependant on a vet everytime, you are doing a disservice to your bird as well as your wallet and will spend a lot of time traveling unless you have a vet nearby. The closest veteranarians to me that will take a rhea have no experience with them, will normally be a minimum of a $700-$800 USD, and are hours away one direction. Please learn what you can to best help your birds, they are not an indoor pet, they are a large bird on par with livestock
Use a temperature Guage of some type to initially make sure your heat lamp isn't too low. I aim for 83-95°F. A chick early on won't always understand that bedding down closely to a heat lamp that is too low will cook it alive and kill it while it sleeps. Such guages can be acquired for cheap on Amazon as well as a general outdoor Guage can be used to initially check or verify
When hatching, whether assisted or not, make sure the chick doesn't dry out. This is called shrink wrapping and can kill a rhea chick in 30-60min, allbiet such a race to death is normally due to assisted hatching and the chick isn't ready yet to throw off its shell and membrane. Spray the opening 2-3 times a day with a genital most and place a damp rag over the egg shell opening to reduce airflow
Weighing your eggs, at least early on until comfortable, as well as the chick after hatching then 5 days later and then at the one and two week ages is a good way to know if the chick is eating enough. A chick losing a third of its weight (ex: 13oz down to 8.5oz) is starving to death and will die within one to two days. If the chick is in such dire straits, feed by hand a quarter to half handful of feed, grubs, flies, and/or hard boiled eggs 2-3 times a day and 1-2 thumbs worth of duckweed for hydration. This will give more time for you to figure out what is wrong or for the chick to simply learn to eat and drink if that is the issue. Never give water by shooting it into their mouth, this will kill them if it gets into their lungs at this age, adults are high risk too if you do this and it goes into the lungs
If your chick is shaking, this is a deficiency but is normally cause by starvation which can be due to stress, not learning to eat/drink, colder weather and the chick was a late hatch, isn't up to speed for where it needs to weigh, and/or doesn't have a warm enough area for the dropping temperatures and is now burning muscle and soon organs for calories to stay warm
Keep chicks on a stable surface. Cardboard, plastic, mud, ect are all slick surfaces and are likely to cause a leg or splaying injury. These can easily be fatal, especially when a bird is larger or has enough energy to not stay in a sling. If not remedied, they will lose a critical amount of muscle mass and not be able to stand and inevitably sit upright and will cause their body to have blood flow and digestive issues and die
I will add to the list of things for chicks as things come up. All of these are things I have experienced first hand, specifically this breeding season or have seen countless posts about in the instance of splayed legs
Finally, always ask questions about your birds. I only do rheas and am aiming to continue to ramp up for meat production for alfa gal that is rising in southern Indiana. I can't really help anymore than a general sense for Ostrich and Emu, however, there are people on the BYC forums here as well as Facebook groups that have a lot of experience and can help, always ask questions and reach out to help your birds
o7
On feeding, here are the two diets I personally recomend and can vouch for from using them myself
-Mazure ratite starter, salt with selenium for half the diet and the other half grazing/looking for insects in the forage (costlier and tougher to do as not everyone also has the space or the time to allow proper grazing)
-Unmedicated chick starter topped with rooster booster crumbs, liquid human b suppliment in the water (I do not have an exact dosage at the moment) (I still recomend salting with selenium salt, IN the same way you would salt a fried egg)
-I do a combination by using the unmedicated chick starter, sprinkled rooster booster and salted with selenium salt. I put b suppliment into the water and let them graze 30min-2h each day. I give them about half of a hard boiled egg in the morning and the other half in the evening per chick with the whites of it broken up. Any injured, slow growing, or chicks not eating or not eating enough are hand fed as well as hand fed duckweed for a few days, they normally pick things up on their own after that. The hand feeding has to be done when other issues have arisen, see some below topics that bring it up
Make sure your chick has plentiful access to forage, fodder, greens, and/or flies (dead and alive and ideally larger flies like army flies or flies from roadkill as they are larger)
If a chick is by itself, buy a couple chicken chicks to put with it. A lonely chick is liable to starve itself due to the stress of being alone at a young age, especially while it is still learning to eat and drink
If a chick has an enlarged area at the base of its neck, this is sour crop. Stop feeding any fruit, foods high in starcges/sugars, and put onto a heavy protein diet of which hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, and insects is best. The sour crop is almost always caused a Yeast overgrowth due to a sudden change in diet. Parasites can cause it, but that is an outlier and harder to treat in time for a bird that is being starved due to yeast devouring more of its food before it can be properly digested. Massage the area from top to bottom to help pass food. If it isn't passing at all, then this is most likely impaction, I do not have any feasible solution for impaction unless you are competent enough to Perform a surgery and stitch the chick back up of which there is low success if really young due to the chick still not know how to eat/drink, energy demands to grow and be healthy, as well as the high cost for a veterinarian to do the surgery that would normally be the same cost or multiples of getting a new chick. If you are dependant on a vet everytime, you are doing a disservice to your bird as well as your wallet and will spend a lot of time traveling unless you have a vet nearby. The closest veteranarians to me that will take a rhea have no experience with them, will normally be a minimum of a $700-$800 USD, and are hours away one direction. Please learn what you can to best help your birds, they are not an indoor pet, they are a large bird on par with livestock
Use a temperature Guage of some type to initially make sure your heat lamp isn't too low. I aim for 83-95°F. A chick early on won't always understand that bedding down closely to a heat lamp that is too low will cook it alive and kill it while it sleeps. Such guages can be acquired for cheap on Amazon as well as a general outdoor Guage can be used to initially check or verify
When hatching, whether assisted or not, make sure the chick doesn't dry out. This is called shrink wrapping and can kill a rhea chick in 30-60min, allbiet such a race to death is normally due to assisted hatching and the chick isn't ready yet to throw off its shell and membrane. Spray the opening 2-3 times a day with a genital most and place a damp rag over the egg shell opening to reduce airflow
Weighing your eggs, at least early on until comfortable, as well as the chick after hatching then 5 days later and then at the one and two week ages is a good way to know if the chick is eating enough. A chick losing a third of its weight (ex: 13oz down to 8.5oz) is starving to death and will die within one to two days. If the chick is in such dire straits, feed by hand a quarter to half handful of feed, grubs, flies, and/or hard boiled eggs 2-3 times a day and 1-2 thumbs worth of duckweed for hydration. This will give more time for you to figure out what is wrong or for the chick to simply learn to eat and drink if that is the issue. Never give water by shooting it into their mouth, this will kill them if it gets into their lungs at this age, adults are high risk too if you do this and it goes into the lungs
If your chick is shaking, this is a deficiency but is normally cause by starvation which can be due to stress, not learning to eat/drink, colder weather and the chick was a late hatch, isn't up to speed for where it needs to weigh, and/or doesn't have a warm enough area for the dropping temperatures and is now burning muscle and soon organs for calories to stay warm
Keep chicks on a stable surface. Cardboard, plastic, mud, ect are all slick surfaces and are likely to cause a leg or splaying injury. These can easily be fatal, especially when a bird is larger or has enough energy to not stay in a sling. If not remedied, they will lose a critical amount of muscle mass and not be able to stand and inevitably sit upright and will cause their body to have blood flow and digestive issues and die
I will add to the list of things for chicks as things come up. All of these are things I have experienced first hand, specifically this breeding season or have seen countless posts about in the instance of splayed legs
Finally, always ask questions about your birds. I only do rheas and am aiming to continue to ramp up for meat production for alfa gal that is rising in southern Indiana. I can't really help anymore than a general sense for Ostrich and Emu, however, there are people on the BYC forums here as well as Facebook groups that have a lot of experience and can help, always ask questions and reach out to help your birds
o7
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