Sleepy chick chirping a lot - need positivity here

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

One of our new babies (June 7 hatch) has been sleeping a lot. It woke up with a little pasty butt this morning, I cleaned it off with warm water and it's been pooping fine since then. But it's still been under the brooder and sleeping a lot today. We search all the threads here and decided to treat for cocci just in case- and gave them all a dose of corid. They have been on durvet medicated type c chick starter, but we also gave them rooster booster vitamins the first 3 days, and nutridrench on the 4th day. This was to be the first day I was going to give them water with nothing in it, but then change to corid. So I was concerned that the extra vitamins were nullifying the medicated feed with extra thiamine, but I'm not sure if that's a thing. She seemed to be doing better this afternoon, so I started to think maybe we were worried over nothing - but maybe we should continue at least the 5 day dosing of corid before going back to just the medicated feed as a preventative.

This evening, she has been very loud, chirping and not happy whether she is in the pop up playpen (brooder) or outside it. We pick her up, hold her, she seems ok but is still chirping. We put her back in the playpen and when we zip the door she flings herself at the door freaking out and chirping. We take her out, put her back in (she is sick of being in our hands and makes a go for the door on her own), take her out, put her back in - nothing seems to satisfy. We tried looking this up and some people say some chicks are just loud, and other people say there's something wrong and it might be "failure to thrive".

I'm not sure what to continue giving them, if anything. This little baby is SO friendly we will be devastated if we lose her. We are going to call the vet tomorrow, but does anyone have any advice? This is an Austra White chick, I was afraid since it is a hybrid there might be some issue with "failure to thrive"? I wouldn't be worried about the loud chirping with no way to help her except that she was sleeping so much under the brooder today when all the other chicks were not. (We had a loud chick in our first batch of chickens a year ago, and she turned out fine - just very loud!) When she isn't under the brooder, she behaves normally- active, eats, drinks, poops.

I'm hoping someone can tell me something positive, because I'm really anxious right now afraid I'm going to wake up to a dead chick. We're going to call the chicken vet tomorrow (they weren't open today), but in the meantime, would appreciate positive advice. Please don't tell me "sometimes it just happens" or anything like that- we will do whatever we can to help them.

 

[sourland]

Hopefully things are better this morning. You've checked the temperature in the brooder? Constant chirping/complaining is sometimes a result of being not warm enough. It may be failure to thrive, the chick may be imprinted on you or any variety of things. Good luck.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

She seems to be doing better this morning. I guess I'll finish the round of corid and then go back to the normal medicated food only. Hopefully nothing changes. At least there was no pasty butt and she had at least 1 cecal and 2 normal poops that I saw this morning. We've been kinda worried about the corid/medicated food since we actually had 1 chick from our first batch of babies end up with wryneck and the vet said it could be from the medicated food and lack of thiamine absorption (it took a while but she got better- it was an awful situation though). I mean, I guess it's unlikely we'd end up with a 2nd special needs chicken with the same issues, but.. Still, we worry.

They have a brooder heat plate, we raised 1 side higher than the other so there is a gradient (I think they were too hot until we did this, since they are a week old now I guess that makes sense), and they are in a large pop up play pen with mesh windows and zippers - I had read a lot of people saying the chicks can get too hot/overheated, but I don't think that's an issue.

Two of them call to us a lot, but the one I am worried about was doing it and nothing was helping. The other one stops when we hold her.

My partner thinks that we've been reading too many "things that can go wrong" threads over the last year and now we are just so much more aware of the million things that can kill chicks/chickens, that we are overly anxious helicopter parents..

 

[Disintegration]

She seems to be doing better this morning. I guess I'll finish the round of corid and then go back to the normal medicated food only. Hopefully nothing changes. At least there was no pasty butt and she had at least 1 cecal and 2 normal poops that I saw this morning. We've been kinda worried about the corid/medicated food since we actually had 1 chick from our first batch of babies end up with wryneck and the vet said it could be from the medicated food and lack of thiamine absorption (it took a while but she got better- it was an awful situation though). I mean, I guess it's unlikely we'd end up with a 2nd special needs chicken with the same issues, but.. Still, we worry.

They have a brooder heat plate, we raised 1 side higher than the other so there is a gradient (I think they were too hot until we did this, since they are a week old now I guess that makes sense), and they are in a large pop up play pen with mesh windows and zippers - I had read a lot of people saying the chicks can get too hot/overheated, but I don't think that's an issue.

Two of them call to us a lot, but the one I am worried about was doing it and nothing was helping. The other one stops when we hold her.

My partner thinks that we've been reading too many "things that can go wrong" threads over the last year and now we are just so much more aware of the million things that can kill chicks/chickens, that we are overly anxious helicopter parents..

I wish you best of luck for your chick! Hopefully it continues getting better

 

[ChanP]

Make sure to gradually raise the heat plate as they grow, and always have food and water available. Best of luck!

 

[Mellowmalt]

So I was concerned that the extra vitamins were nullifying the medicated feed with extra thiamine, but I'm not sure if that's a thing.

No, it's the other way round like your vet said. Medicated feed means thiamine doesn't get absorbed well.

we actually had 1 chick from our first batch of babies end up with wryneck and the vet said it could be from the medicated food and lack of thiamine absorption (it took a while but she got better- it was an awful situation though).

Chicks need heat, no drafts, food and water. If the chick is still constantly complaining extra light might help but not much more you can do.
Sometimes they are just noisy for a bit. Yours is eating at least. I've lost a few chicks that would complain but they really failed to thrive and wouldn't eat.

Listen to your vet when he says medicated food interferes with thiamine absorption which is the most essential vitamin that chickens specifically need. Without it they develop wry neck, split legs and curled toes.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Mellowmalt - I meant that if we gave them nutri drench/rooster booster when we first got them, they were getting extra thiamine than just the thiamine in their food. If the amprolium keeps them from absorping Thiamine, is it ALL thiamine? or just a certain amount? Because if we are giving them more thiamine than they would normally get from their food by giving them supplemental vitamins, does the amprolium from the medicated feed still work? Hope that makes more sense.

We were worried about the one sleepy chick having cocci, hence the corid. Everything I read was really "it will save their life if it is cocci, if it's not cocci it won't hurt them". Although, I assume it would put them back a bit on building cocci immunity.

As for the chick with wry neck, she didn't develop it until she was 3 months old, and she had been slow to feather. It turned out she was vitamin deficient and also had no gut bacteria - none of the other 9 chicks had an issue like that so the vet said it was probably a genetic issue with her having trouble absorbing. She is doing well now with regular vitamin supplementation (nutri drench) and probiotics (benebac). She never got cocci as far as I could tell and we never had to treat the first chicks with corid. My point was that it is unlikely that we'd have two chicks with a genetic deficiency like that, doesn't seem like it would be that common.

 

[Mellowmalt]

sry sarah, I am no expert and I personally would avoid medicated feed unless I bought mass produced chicks from a hatchery.

With good hygiene procedures you won't need medicated feed. If chicks do get ill, it takes them 3 weeks to get ill.

If you have to feed medicated when they do get ill then they have got 3 weeks of energy reserves and it won't matter as much that the medicated feed stops all absorption of thiamine and like said I have never actually used medicated feed so I can only tell you what I have observed and so far all I have observed is people not using it correctly, it only causing problems if used incorrectly and I would disagree that it "won't hurt them"

So I can't asnswer your question or help, I'm probably just going to confuse you. You ask if the thiamine has made your medecine ineffective but to me that is completely the wrong question to ask...

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

I'm asking if EXTRA thiamine will do anything. I am asking if the amprolium stops ALL absorption or only up to a certain threshold - since the medicated feed is a low dose of amprolium I assume the point is to hinder the thiamine and not stop all absorption- that would be the dosage for cocci outbreak.

You just said it stops all absorption, that's what I was asking. If that's the case, getting supportive care in the way of nutridrench (if used correctly) shouldn't hurt, as there are other vitamins than thiamine to consider. However, I don't think that makes sense - from the standpoint of wanting them to gain immunity to cocci.

These chicks ARE from a big hatchery.
I dunno, the feed doesn't say "start feeding at 3 weeks" it says to "feed as the sole source of amprolium for the first 8 weeks and do not change litter unless absolutely necessary". Seems the point is to support them through gaining immunity to cocci through exposure. We are walking out to our big chickens and back inside a lot, and it's been raining, so it seems like feeding medicated would be the right thing to do for our situation.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

So she was starting to look better over the course of the week, but yesterday evening she crashed. She started sneezing and had mucus, and then started open mouth breathing. It was kind of out of no where - she had been sleepy but nothing like this. The emergency vet suspected something respiratory. They gave her a shot of antibiotic and an anti inflammatory, as well as sub q fluids. We took her home hoping not to stress her out more. This morning she was still not looking good, and she stopped eating and drinking, so we brought her back to the emergency vet to be hospitalized. We're doing everything we can for her, she's our little Princess.

The vet thinks she came to us sick.