Young Serama chicks dieing! Starving? How to make them eat?

[Camelot Farms]

Update?

How is the little one this morning?

 

[SeramaLife]

Same

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

If you have a syringe, soak up a bit of egg yolk and place a drop or two on her tongue, or if it's a 1cc syringe--no needle, way down her throat (and then you can give a bit more). Are the crumbles too large for her? Maybe grind/crush them smaller? Give some applesauce?

 

[SeramaLife]

Quote:
That is what I normally do, but it is impossible to give her anything in a syringe because the syringe is thicker than her beak. She is tinier than most, because she hatched from a pullet egg. This morning all the chicks were "pigging out" on the mix. I saw that one eat, but her crop is empty. She has been peeping all morning.

 

[chickenzoo]

You can get some baby bird hand feeding formula and give it to them in a syringe or mix with water....

 

[sojeo]

You don't need to put the syringe in her mouth. If your mixture is liquid enough (like thinned cooked egg yolk) then you can just put a drop on the side of her beak right above the hinge of the jaw (do chickens have jaws?) Anyways, she will reflexively swallow it. Once they get the hang of eating, start thickening your mixture with more egg yolk and then later with crumbles until they are eating on their own. For my sick chick I used yogurt, vitamins, electrolytes, boiled egg yolk and broth from homemade chicken soup. The little girl turned around in 3 days. She was so weak and starved that her legs were sunken and all you could see the bones. She would not eat, would not open her eyes and was swaying as she could barely stand. Now she is bigger than her brooder mate and eats constantly. I wish you luck with your little one.

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

Any better today? I hope so!!

 

[SeramaLife]

She was doing much better. Healthy. Active. That was yesterday. Now she is doing the death gasp in my hand and won't keep down any energizing thing I give her.

 

[insiderart]

 

[SeramaLife]

It died in my hands. I don't know if it means anything, but just before it died, all it's muscles tensed, and it's eyes popped wide open. Then it went limp. Most of my chicks get muscle spasms when they die.