One of the chicks (Yellow) died this morning. The situation started last night. When I got home from work last night, my son was holding the chick and he told me that he found the chick stuck between the feeder and the waterer, convulsing. It was no longer showing any symptoms at that point. I checked the standard concerns; there was no pasty bottom, it seemed to have the ability to drink water when I offered it to her, she wasn't limp or lifeless, she was able to stand on her own, etc. After holding her for about 15 minutes, I decided to put her back into the brooder with the others. She quickly fell asleep and I assumed that she was okay.
About an hour later, my son got me again and showed me that she was in distress again. What he thought was convulsions looked more like hiccups (kinda) to me. She would stretch out her neck, open her beak and sort of toss her head back over and over and over. She was laying near the feeder but she definitely was not stuck this time. She was attempting to peep, but there was barely any sound coming out.
I wondered if she was chocking on the food. I tried to get her to drink some water this time but she wouldn't. I cleaned out an eye dropper and tried to give her water this way, hoping to possibly wash down the food. That was not helping. (Later I read that's never a good idea because the chick could end up with the water in her lungs and die by drowning.) I handed her off to my son, suggesting that he massage her neck in a downward (only) motion to hopefully encourage her to swallow the food and to keep trying to give her drinks of water. By this time, our local feed store was closed for the night, so calling them for suggestions wasn't an option.
I checked online for "thoughts" and suggestions. I couldn't really find anything that might help her swallow, but I did read that she may be having crop issues, particularly if she was on medicated chick food (yes she was). The only suggestions that I could find at the time was to pick up some pro-biotics to add to the water and isolate her from the others, and not let her eat anything right away until the crop was clear. There was a lot of talk about vets doing surgery on older chickens, but I seriously doubted that was an option for a week old chick. We set up a smaller aquarium right next to the large one, with water for her, and instead of shavings, we laid down some towels. She was definitely not happy to be separated from the others and peeped loudly about it. As the night wore on, she would hardly drink anything and seemed to become more lethargic.
When we got up the next morning, she was basically lifeless and couldn't hold up her head. We got to the feed store just as they opened for the morning to pick up the pro-biotics and get unmedicated chick food, but I really did not think it was feasible for us to save her at this point. When we got back home, it was too late. My son dug a hole to bury her, and I left for work. It's always a sad, empty feeling when these cute little fuzzy animals don't survive. I don't know about others, but I feel so helpless and untrained in these types of moments.
We have switched the other chicks over to the non-medicated food, added pro-biotics to their water (at least for the week). The others appear to be fine, and hopefully, this will be the only one that we lose.
