danceswithronin
Crowing
I am very so sorry for your loss.Those that hatch with the unhealed healed navel (umbilicus) are at greater risk of getting a yolk sac infection. Sadly, not much can be done to treat them.
Again, I am very sorry for your loss.
This was my guess for what took down the chick too. Hard to treat infection in something so delicate and little. Plus I feel like chicks are biologically designed to die quickly if anything is wrong with them at all just to leave more resources to the remaining clutch. Very much a "survival of the fittest" culture amongst chickens.
It's kind of similar with barn swallows (I raised some orphaned ones last year after they got pressure-washed off a company building). If barn swallow chicks make their first fledgling jump from the high nest and get grounded rather than taking off, the parents abandon them because they assume they will not survive, and swallows must learn to take off from high places right away - they don't learn to fly from the ground like robins and other fledgling songbirds do. Swallow chicks either fly on their first jump or not at all. Very spartan animals.
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