Young chick scratching at her head

[LegHorn Machine]

I just got 8 chicks and only one of them is acting weird. They are now 5 days old and I have been researching for the past 3 days since the first occurrence but can't figure it out. The baby chick starts to scratch her head violently as she cheep's, she continues to scratch both sides as she falls over and rolls on her back to use both feet to scratch the sides of her head.

There is NO abrassion, fleas, lumps or dry skin. I can't see anything and I feel so helpless. And like I said she is they only one out of eight doing anything. Maybe an ear infection, maybe the eyes? Please help.

 

[LegHorn Machine]

And if you wanted to know its one of the two Black Australorp that's having problems.

 

[PDXcluck]

Did you ever determine what was wrong...I just saw this post and it might? be related:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/169371/head-scratching-chick

 

[nurse_turtle]

I would give it a bath. Very warm running water, soft toothbrush and baby shampoo. Hold the chick under the running water the whole time you're cleaning it. i've done this for sticky chicks just several minutes old before. It's worth a try.

 

[LegHorn Machine]

Thanks for checking up because I meant to update my question. I don't know what the problem was BUT I applied neosporin and made sure to get it down to her skin then because I didn't want to keep that 1 week old chick separated from the rest as to keep warm and because I didn't want the other chicks to pick on her or peck, I used a comb and blow dryer to kind of dry her fur out a little. I did this twice but the second time I didn't blow dry and just put with the others and the other chicks did not pick. This was over a 2-3 day period since as you know neosporin stays moist a long time, I applied after she was peeping and scratching. She is great now and has not done anything unusual like that and is now 9 weeks old. Hope this helped.

 

[LegHorn Machine]

UPDATE: Well our baby girl is no longer a baby... she is days from laying an egg (her RR sister just laid her 1st egg yesterday and they are the same age just different breed), Boe is her name... named after Little Bo Peep, she is the head chicken in our coup. I'm not sure exactly what was wrong with her during her 1st days/weeks of her life but all I could do is try to relieve the scratching as to not let her hurt herself! She is in PECKable health now!