How to Save a Sick Chick: Symptoms and Causes
No matter what you do or how well you take care of your birds, if you raise baby chicks at home long enough you’re going to wind up with a weak, sick, or injured chick. It happens. And you need to know what to do to save this sick chick.
We ended up with a sick chick in our latest brood. The chick developed pasty butt soon after we brought her home from the co-op. I took care of it as soon as I noticed it, but she never really recovered. The chick wouldn’t eat or drink, it didn’t want to come out from under our Brisnea EcoGlow heating unit, and even when she did emerge she toddled around and looked very weak and unsteady. After a week, she was almost the same size as she was at 2 days old, while all the other chicks had doubled in size.
Sick Chick Symptoms
Your sick chick may display some of the following symptoms if she’s not feeling well:
- Lethargic
- Weak
- Not eating or drinking
- Unsteady on its feet
- Slow growth, or none at all, compared to the rest of the brood
- Staying isolated from the other chicks
- Limping or holding a wing away from her body
Why Is My Chick Sick?
There are many reasons why your chick might be weak or sick.
1. Pasty Butt
Pasty butt, also known as pasted vent, is one of the most common conditions that can cause illness in baby chicks. If left untreated it can be fatal.
What Is Pasty Butt?
Pasty butt occurs when the chicken’s vent (where the waste comes out) becomes crusted over with excrement. The excrement sticks to the chick’s downy fluff, hardens, and then blocks the vent entirely. The chick is unable to pass any more stools, and these begin to build up in her digestive track.
Pasty butt is often caused by stress, so it’s more common in mail order chicks who’ve spent a day or two being shipped across the country. However, it can occur with even home-hatched chicks or chicks purchased from a local breeder.
How to Spot Pasty Butt
You should check your chicks for pasty butt daily, or every other day, until they are a week or two old. Pasty butt is most common in very young chicks. By 10 days old, most chicks will have outgrown the tendency to develop this condition.
Checking for pasty butt is straightforward. Gently pick up your chick and look at her vent, which is located directly under her tail. Make sure you look at her vent and not her belly button, which is further down near her legs.
A chick with pasty butt will have a hardened lump of excrement sticking to her downy fluff. If you see this, you need to take care of it immediately.
How to Treat Pasty Butt
To treat pasty butt, bring the chick to the sink and turn on some warm (not hot) water. Put the chick’s back end under the warm water, and take care to keep the rest of her body as dry as possible. Chicks chill very easily and you don’t want her to get cold when she’s already sick and weak.
Under the running water, use your fingers, a cotton swab, or a soft washrag to gently massage the excrement that’s stuck to her down. When you’ve removed all the excrement, dry her gently with a towel and then use a hair dryer on the lowest setting to get her completely dry.
It’s important that you get her completely dry before putting her back into the brooder with the other chicks. If she looks different from the other chicks, for example, if her bare skin is visible or if there is any redness around her vent, the other chicks will peck at her.
2. Weakness From Other or Unknown Causes
It’s important to realize that the causes behind a chick’s weakness depends on timing. According to Chicken Whisperer Magazine, sick and ailing chicks within 3-4 days post-hatch are usually linked to the quality of the chicks and the care they received at the hatchery. After 3-4 days, sickness or death is usually the result of the care they receive after delivery.
There could be a variety of other reasons why your chick is ailing.
- Bacterial infections from the hatchery or brooder where the chick was kept.
- Infection from an unhealed umbilical cord.
- Coccidiosis, a parasitic disease spread by feces, diarrhea is the main sign of this disease
- Broken legs or wings
- Nutrient deficiencies
- Chick got too hot or too cold in transit and is stressed
- Marek’s disease
You can see a full list of possible causes and infections for baby chicks at My Pet Chicken.
How to Help a Sick Chick
All of us want to see our chicks thrive and become healthy hens. However, sometimes a chick needs a bit of TLC in the first week or two to overcome a rocky start. If you have a weak and ailing chick, try some of these strategies
1. Use Probiotics and Electrolytes
One way to give your ailing chick a boost is to purchase some Sav-A-Chick Electrolyte Powder for her water. You can also mix in some Probiotics Powder as well. If you’re thinking about raising baby chicks at home, it’s a good idea to have these products before the chicks arrive.
If the chick is not drinking on her own, you’ll need to give her water using a syringe with the needle removed, or an eyedropper. Put the drops at the end of her beak, one at a time, and let her swallow.
If you don’t have these powders and need something immediately, mix in a drop or two of molasses in some warm water. Be careful using molasses or even sugar, as these items can cause diarrhea in chicks and make them more dehydrated. You only want to use sugar or molasses as an immediate intervention, and then switch to another treatment.
You can also try giving your sick chick Nutri-drench. Nutri-drench is a concentrated liquid vitamin supplement that is designed to boost the immune system and provide a quick dose of essential vitamins and minerals. This stuff is amazing, and I’ve seen it perk up ailing chicks and hens fairly quickly. This is definitely a product that’s worth having on-hand before you bring home chicks.
2. Make Sure She’s Warm
You also want to make sure your chick is warm enough. The brooder’s temperature should be at 95 degrees F during the first week. You can increase the temperature to 100 degrees F if you suspect your chick is chilled. If you have two heating elements, it’s better to isolate the weak chick and increase the temperature for her instead of the entire brood. Isolation will also ensure that the sick chick isn’t trampled or pecked on by the other chicks.
Make sure she has access to food and fresh water, and that there’s enough room in the isolation brooder so that she can move away from the heating element if she gets too hot.
If you do isolate her, move the next smallest chick in with her for company.
3. Feed Her Special Foods
Another way to get some nutrients into your sick chick is to feed her some warmed yogurt with a bit of starter feed mixed in. You can also try some very finely chopped hard boiled or scrambled egg.
These soft foods might be easier for her to eat when she’s so weak, and they’re full of the nutrition she needs to get better. Try to give her food and water at least every two hours until she’s strong enough to eat and drink on her own.
Janet at Timber Creek Farm also suggests trying wet cat food if you have some on hand. It’s a brilliant idea because wet cat food is soft, high in protein, and high in water content. However, she cautions that this is a last ditch effort and should only be used for very weak birds, and only in the very short term. I haven’t tried this approach because we don’t have a cat, but I can see how it could really help a revive a weak chick close to death.
Last Word
You can provide the very best care and attention to your baby chicks, but it’s impossible to prevent and treat every problem. However, with quick intervention you can often thwart fate and save a chick’s life. But, you have to know what to do and have the supplies you need on-hand. Sometimes, a chick will be so near death that she won’t survive long enough for you to head into town to get what you need.
