Thanks, everyone for your help!
Aspen shavings are specifically recommended because they are less aromatic than pine or cedar.
Over the past few hours I've been feeding her a 5% electrolyte solution with an eyedropper, putting small drops on her beak. She seemed to get a bit of energy from that. About fifteen minutes later she had what appeared to be a clear discharge from her vent - perhaps I fed her too much of the electrolyte solution. Shortly after that she ate a bit for the first time in several hours. Then she pooped again and it looked pretty normal.
However, while it seemed she was improving for a while, she is now looking quite distressed. Her breathing is very labored, as you can see in
this video. (You can see her whole body contracting and expanding with each breath. She kind of flops around the box she's in every now and then, not very gracefully. And even her peeping sound is different than it used to be. If she was human I'd say she sounds like she has a bad cold.
I showed the video to a friend who works in bird rescue and this is what he said:
It looks like the labored breathing may not be related to being dehydrated.
Electrolytes may help but, she might have a upper respiratory tack
infection.
Birds can be prone to aspergillosis, a fungal disease and her breathing
reminds me of one of the symptoms. It is hard to detect and difficult to
treat. It is an ubiquitous fungus and though all chicks would be exposed
they should be resistant unless they have a compromised immune system.
Many things suppress the immune system like stress, poor diet, steroids etc.
So like I said the electrolytes may help but if it is an infections the
chicks chances are very poor.
If it is a respiratory infection I guess there's not much I can do.
Thanks again.
