Very sick baby! Help please??!!

[Eelantha]

RIP baby chick who couldn't be saved on time TTxTT waah I hope the rest of your batch makes it into fine-laying hens!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Do you have a way to keep the babies warm?

 

[coach723]

I'm very sorry you lost the chick. It's highly likely that it was shipping stress, some just don't do well with it. If your others are warm enough, and eating and drinking well, they will likely be OK.

 

[Birdmom2020]

Thanks everybody yes my other ones are nice and warm and eating and drinking. They're weird tho. They won't eat from the bowl but would rather me sprinkle it on the clean part of the floor where there's no bedding.

 

[Eelantha]

Thanks everybody ❤ yes my other ones are nice and warm and eating and drinking. They're weird tho. They won't eat from the bowl but would rather me sprinkle it on the clean part of the floor where there's no bedding.

Not weird, just natural xD chickens like to scratch the ground looking for food, and this instinct is just as strong in chicks

 

[Eggcessive]

You can put paper towel down on top of the bedding and sprainkle a little food around their feet until they start eating out of the feeder. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Eelantha]

You can put paper towel down on top of the bedding and sprainkle a little food around their feet until they start eating out of the feeder.

About that. Make sure to scotch tape the edges of any kind of paper you use (be they magazines, journals, paper towels, etc) otherwise the chicks will try and rip the material off to gobble it up. Same for dog pee-pee pads. I walked in last year to see my own chicks feed on the journals I'd used for their beddings, and ultimately had to put them on a wire mesh floor after they threatened to eat up the wood chips I dumped down to hastily cover up the shredded journals...

 

[Eggcessive]

I have used paper towel for bedding for the first week of my chick’s life, and they have never eaten the paper. It does need to be changed frequently as it becomes soiled with droppings.

 

[Eelantha]

I have used paper towel for bedding for the first week of my chick’s life, and they have never eaten the paper. It does need to be changed frequently as it becomes soiled with droppings.

I wish I could say the same for my own chicks. Despite the chick feeder and waterers at their disposal and easy reach, mine were voracious little eaters that tried everything they could peck at. There were only three of them, but they proved as efficient as a shredding machine to lay waste to the journals I left in their brooder one unsuspecting day.

I agree 100% with you on the frequent changes, chicks make a soiled mess of such papers very quickly as they age up. The advantages of a wire mesh floor is that any feces they do falls through the gaps to the waiting surface below, making for an easy change-out bedding and chicks who can't eat, walk or sleep in their poop. They certainly couldn't get at the journals I used later once I put them on the wire mesh floor. They were pretty dismayed about it xD

 

[Birdmom2020]

Okay if anyone is still on this one I still have a problem. I just lost another baby today. They are all perky, warm, eating drinking. But I noticed they all have caked up butts. I've been using a warm paper towel to try and wipe away the messes but they just keep getting caked up again. If they do get anything out it's watery/foamy like. I'm feeding Purina brand medicated starter for chicks from hatch to 6 weeks. I'm not sure if tractor supply got a sick bunch this time or what. My older ones are nice and healthy. And I haven't had the babies around the older ones at all.