Sick Chick?

[blessedchickenmama7]

I have a chick who is worrying me. If anyone can help me I'd appreciate it. I am a new chick mama and don't know much other than what I've learned in the last few weeks...

One of my Ameracauna chicks is not growing like the others. At first I just though she was going to be a small girl. The other two from the same hatch are much more nicely feathered at this point as well. They are all 5 1/2 weeks old. They are in with other chicks who all seem to be healthy. Today I noticed the small one is just sort of standing around. She did eat a little when I changed the food but not much. Mostly she is just standing in one spot. Her feathers look messy and the fuzz that she still has left just looks wild around her neck. The others looked like that a little for a short time as well, but not as much as her. I have younger chicks also, some as much as 2 weeks younger, and she is the smallest of all.

Her crop seems fine. Her butt is not pasty. She can move as fast as the other chicks, if she's frightened, but just doesn't seem to want to. She is not being picked on. No one bothers her if she goes to the feed or water.

My biggest concern is it seems like she just stopped growing and developing. But today she seems not to feel well. This is the first day for that.

Any ideas? Anyone ever had a chick with "failure to thrive"?

Sonia

 

[arlee453]

Sometimes an otherwise healthy chick just doesn't thrive. It's like they don't have the energy or will power to jostle around the food bowl with the others, and then they don't get quite enough to really grow well, and that makes it harder to compete, etc until they just slowly fade away. It becomes a vicious cycle.

You can try taking that chick out 3-4 times a day and offering alone feeding time. I use regular chick starter, but moistened to make a mash. This help push fluids as well as getting extra nutrition.

You can also use boiled or scrambled egg crumbled up.

Some also add electrolytes to the water or a product like AviaCharge, etc. I don't have any experience with that, so I'll leave the details there to someone else.

Good luck with your chick. It's like if you can just get them past a certain point they will do OK on their own, but if they start to slow down compared to the others they sometimes need extra help to hold their own and get to that makeit/breakit point.

 

[blessedchickenmama7]

Thank you! I will try taking her out and feeding her some egg and see what happens.