Why is my 2-day old baby chick open mouth breathing, is she sick?

[chickldymachias]

Hi there,

I have a 2-day old baby chick, she is eating and drinking, but has started open mouth breathing the past few hours. What's going on, is she sick? I have given her probiotics and some vitamin/electrolytes.

Thanks

 

[cva34]

Hi there,

I have a 2-day old baby chick, she is eating and drinking, but has started open mouth breathing the past few hours. What's going on, is she sick? I have given her probiotics and some vitamin/electrolytes.

Thanks

Check Temp in brooder Probably TOO HOT...cva34

 

[chickldymachias]

its 95 under the light, and 85 in a non-lighted area. she and the other chick are choosing to lay under the light though.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

too hot. chickens perspire by panting. move the heat source farther away. hold yor hand in the chicks area and see if it feels comfortably warm to you.Its good to have a warm side and a cool side,the chick will decide whats comfy

 

[stephensc7146]

I'm a first time chicken owner, and I got my chicks almost 3 weeks ago. about 2 days after I brought them home I kept them in a tote. One chick was breathing with its mouth open. My first reaction was to raise up the brooder lamp, which sort of worked. I had to move the lamp a lot to keep up with the temperature changes in my room. To fix the temperature problem, my mom and I built a bigger brooding box. I have the lamp pointed in the back corner so the chicks can just move around the box to where they are most comfortable. I think your chick is fine. Temperature control is just a little tricky.

 

[chickldymachias]

temp is fine, there are different spaces in our brooder of temperature- they can choose warm or warmer. Now she is lethargic, not eating much and labored breathing.

 

[Themehmeh]

For some reason my chicks like it pretty cold. They're a week old and from day one they didn't like anything hotter than 80f. as soon as you raise the heat they immediately fall down and start panting.

My guess is that my method of selecting the best and brightest from the bunch also caused me to grab some of the cold loving chicks. The store probably had them at about 90f in the corner but the opposite corner was room temp. All the sleeping and tired chicks were in the heat, all the active chicks were out of it. I picked chicks from the areas outside the heat because they were more lively and I might have picked chicks who naturally were more okay with colder temps.

 

[Justgotchicks12]

too hot. chickens perspire by panting. move the heat source farther away. hold yor hand in the chicks area and see if it feels comfortably warm to you.Its good to have a warm side and a cool side,the chick will decide whats comfy

whats the temp? at your chicks age it should be 95 degrees. You move the temp down 5 degrees every month. and I use this method with a 50 watt lamp. mabye yours has too many watts? also, put heat lamp at the corner of the space. if its in the middle, they'll have no space to cool down.

 

[lsprague7]

I have chick that seems to be having the identical problem. How is your chick doing? Any suggestions?

 

[highpointfarm]

You should post this in the emergency section...