runt silkie chick wont stop crying!

[Beldenfarm]

we are new to chickens to any input would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

we got a baby silkie chick just hatched from a show bird breeder, whi had spraddled legs, and I have nursed him back to health! he was in a brace foe 5 days, and now can run around and get food and water on his own in the brooder! i had hand fed him chick feed/ yogurt mix and water so he could get strong, and that sure worked!!!!!

the only thing is! he wont stop crying!!!!!!! like he is in pain or something. he is one week old now, but still the size of a newborn chick, while his siblings are tennis ball sized. the other chicks dont seem to make much peeping unless the see my hand and come over to check out if I have a treat or to say hi! little black baby (FDR) doesnt come after my hands like the others do, and seems to always want to stay under the eco glo (the heat system we are using instead of a heat lamp) he comes out for food and water but not to play or anything! and when he does he chirps a ton! he seems to only want to cuddle up under the brooder heater with the others.



is he possibly cold? hes awfully small and i think he might not be getting as much heat as he wants from the eco glo since hes a bit shorter than the rest. we have it on the first setting though... :-/ he looks and acts totally healthy.

help! whats wrong! is he cold? should i switch over to heat lamp???

 

[chooks4life]

Well, from the sound of it something is wrong with him. What do you mean when you say he was in a brace for his spraddled legs? Not that I think that's the problem. But it sounds to me like he's not coping for some reason; a baby that cries nonstop is almost always a goner. He may have some internal problem like an inherited deformity which is causing him pain or to be unable to process his food properly so he's always cold and weak... Or he may be sick... I don't know, sorry. Best wishes though.

 

[ten chicks]

we are new to chickens to any input would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

we got a baby silkie chick just hatched from a show bird breeder, whi had spraddled legs, and I have nursed him back to health! he was in a brace foe 5 days, and now can run around and get food and water on his own in the brooder! i had hand fed him chick feed/ yogurt mix and water so he could get strong, and that sure worked!!!!!

the only thing is! he wont stop crying!!!!!!! like he is in pain or something. he is one week old now, but still the size of a newborn chick, while his siblings are tennis ball sized. the other chicks dont seem to make much peeping unless the see my hand and come over to check out if I have a treat or to say hi! little black baby (FDR) doesnt come after my hands like the others do, and seems to always want to stay under the eco glo (the heat system we are using instead of a heat lamp) he comes out for food and water but not to play or anything! and when he does he chirps a ton! he seems to only want to cuddle up under the brooder heater with the others.



is he possibly cold? hes awfully small and i think he might not be getting as much heat as he wants from the eco glo since hes a bit shorter than the rest. we have it on the first setting though... :-/ he looks and acts totally healthy.

help! whats wrong! is he cold? should i switch over to heat lamp???

Is he out of brace?
do you give them any grit? if chicks are eating anything other than chick feed,they need grit. Have you seen him eating and drinking? He doesn't have pasty butt or any other issues?

 

[Beldenfarm]

update: sadly this little baby died last night in my hands. I gave him the best week of life he could ever have. he was taken out of his brace and was running around and hapy as could be, then the next day just completely began to deteriorate in health. glad hes not in pain anymore though. thanks for the input!

 

[Winnie22]

I have a batch of silkies about 3wks old now. The little runt of the bunch, whom we didnt expect to make it this long, is doing really well. However he is the LOUDEST one in the bunch. He chirps alllll the time and out chirps the rest. Not sure what his deal is but seems like the lil fello jst wants to be heard I guess....
Sorry about your loss.

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry for your loss, Beldenfarm. At least you gave him comfort and care in his little lifetime. Better than some chicken's years of terribly unhappy life. I've found that a baby that cries nonstop almost never makes it. Despite the hardness of it I still give palliative care to many animals if I can't justify culling outright because there might be a chance. Many do make it, even those you're sure can't, and you never know unless you give them a chance. I'd rather it struggle and lose than struggle and be put out of MY misery when it wanted to fight and could have recovered. If they don't want to live or don't feel they can, nothing you can do will save them anyway. If they want to fight, it's their life and I'll let them try, and help them, and not much can stop them when they want to live. Some animals get a small injury and don't cope psychologically and die from trauma more than anything else, whereas some can take multiple brutal and unbelievable injuries and/or illnesses and still recover and go on to enjoy life. I believe you did the right thing, as hard as it often is, because it sounds like he tried rather than just going and lying down somewhere to call it quits.

Quote:
Happy chirping is one thing, but you can't easily mistake crying. They communicate pain in their voices quite effectively. On the note of abnormally noisy babies, often they have inherited bad feed economy and are always hungry hence the demanding; sometimes toxicity can cause constant noisemaking; on a worse note (warning, may be upsetting) a dumped cat we took in gave birth to many normal kittens and a huge kitten who nursed nonstop and cried and cried and cried until she ate his head off; turns out he was crying because he was a lump of cancer. He was in constant pain and constantly hungry and couldn't feed both himself and the cancer he was riddled with adequately. He looked normal though, just huge. If a chick cries nonstop it is probably also unable to survive due to severe internal fault of some kind or another.

 

[Beldenfarm]

Thank you everyone for the support!
We had another chickie pass away who was lethargic from day one, and was told she might just have a chance, and to wait and see. Always sleeping and just not right. We gave her a chance to live, but she just chose not to, was very sad because she was my most precious and beautiful chick i have had so far. My family and I are beginning to get the farmers mindset, and see now that you really do lose a few chicks when you start from new hatchlings! Our flock of 9 chicks are 3-4 weeks old now and going strong! We will be getting a few more layers, since 3 of the chicks are bantam silkies (which we dont know who will be a roo and who will be a hen when they grow up!) and 2 appear to be roosters, so we are down to 4 "for sure" hens and we would like to get a nice amount from the start. Hopefully seeing lavendar and lemon cukoo orpingtons in our future to tag team with our delaware twins, RIR and buff orpington ladies! crossing fingers that our silkies are girls, i dont know if I have the heart to let go of them because they are too beautiful/ precious to say goodbye to!

brought the babies outside for the first time to play in their new hawk free "grass tent" and they LOVED it, they will sure eat all my ants!

happy farming
-Beldenfarm

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks for the update and best wishes with your flock.

Regarding ants, some of them produce natural toxins to protect themselves (arsenic/cyanide variations --- I forget which) and can make your birds sick. I think they're probably only eating the ants because they haven't seen bugs before and don't know what's good for them. none of my chooks of any age eat ants, ever, but I do live in Australia so there could be edible species where you are... I don't know. If you get a sudden mystery illness or inflammation of respiratory systems, the ants could be it.

 

[Beldenfarm]

thankfully the ants in my area (eastern USA) doesnt have harmful ants that i know of besides red ants which bite... mainly just sugar ants and carpenter ants!!!