Tiny Tim - my disabled chick - is improving

This little BR chick was pretty shrink-wrapped in the egg; I intervened because I have done so before without ill effects. It's a cockerel. Pretty much another extra rooster, and I have a slew of 'em already. No BR roosters, though, just one laying pullet (currently recovering from a pretty nasty molt).

Three little BRs hatched, two cockerels and one pullet, each a day after the other. Tiny Tim was the last, late hatchling. I even kept him in the incubator another day and a half after hatching (total of 2.5 days), because he had an enlarged abdomen, was pretty clearly not "done" yet. After he fluffed up and moved around some, I realized one of his legs wasn't working, and I knew he would have trouble in the brooder with the other, weeks older chicks with which his siblings were already merged.

I gave him sugar water via hypo. He ate, and drank. He couldn't move around much without flopping. I didn't expect him to survive and I didn't have the guts to cull him. In past hatchings, a couple of other sickly chicks have expired before I needed to cull them.

He was pretty darned spunky, though. He developed a method of "swimming" through the shavings in the brooder, using his one good leg and both wings. I wanted to build him a little set of crutches!

Snuggling with the other chicks, including TJ chicks 3 weeks older, was his favorite past-time. He got bowled over a lot, as new hatchlings are wont to do, when older chicks suddenly stand up and dash off across the brooder. NOBODY pecked him. Sometimes somebody would stand on his bent leg, or one of his wings, and he'd cheep indignantly about it until they moved. He flapped his way to the feeder, where the others had scratched some out, and was able to eat quite well.

I continued to give him sugar water by hypo. Yesterday, he started to refuse it, instead of gulping at the droplets. Oh crud, I thought, he's giving up.

Not to worry - this evening I saw him scoot over to the raised waterer, hike himself up onto his good leg, lean against the raised waterer base, and tuck his head over the edge to drink. A couple of times he has powered himself up onto BOTH legs and wobble there for a few seconds. Then he topples over and rests.

But he can get from one side of the brooder - the long way - within seconds.

I put two brand new BO hatchlings into the brooder and watched. The older chicks were curious, but put up with the newest babies pecking at THEIR eyes. No pecking back. Actually, a little - just to remove shavings from their feathers! Tiny Tim and the two babies all snuggle up under a three week old Trader Joe's chick (probably a white leghorn, a pullet) and nap together. The BOs get around faster than he does, and I am imagining he is trying harder due to their presence. Whatever.

In any case, even though he's just another cockerel chick, and a disabled one at that, Tiny Tim is a real little trooper. I am incredibly pleased at his progress. It may yet turn out to be a disaster, later, but for the time being, he's safe from being culled.

I will have to get photos of him without the red brooder light making 'em look strange.