PLEASE HELP! Sick chick! Can't walk/eat/drink!!

[my first peepers]

Hi, I have 12 Cornish X meat chicks and three Light Brahma chicks. Meat chicks are 9 days old from a local farm, LB from Ideal hatched on 23rd. Until last night they were all fine and this morning one of the CX was not getting up so I put it in a box in the brooder (I don't have a 2nd light) with it's own food and water but it won't eat or drink and now can't even get up. It is also breathing heavily. What should I do and what could be causing this? I am very worried about the other chicks getting whatever this is.

Edited to add:
They are on medicated feed/electrolyte vitamin solution in water. The sick chick has pooped since I seperated it and it looks normal, not runny or bloody. Are they too young to have yogurt?

 

[my first peepers]

Anyone? Please?
I noticed that a few of the other chicks have runny poop...but not the sick one.
I am getting paranoid everytime one of the others lies down.

 

[Baybrio]

I'm not an expert but your chick may be having trouble with it's heart. The meat chicks can be prone to this.

I don't have a solution but if it is the heart at least the other chicks will not be impacted.

Good luck.

 

[ChooksChick]

The runny poop might just be you seeing the cecal poop. They have different, runny (and stinky!) poop every 8th or 9th poo, from a loop of intestine called the caecum, and it freaks people out often to see the anomaly.

Is there anything else different about the others? It may be just a heart defect, as was suggested.

Good luck!

 

[ChickBond 007]

Check your temp in the brooder. Is it hotter than 90 degrees in there?

 

[TrixiePA]

Sorry to hear about your chickie. I have no exp with meat chicks but I did give my chicks yogurt and hard boiled eggs from the first week so I don't think they are too young for that.

I always read about the vitamins. Prob a good idea until someone with more exp chimes in.

Good Luck.

 

[threehorses]

I'd discontinue the water treatment until further notice. Clean pure water only.

Also please check to make sure that the brooder temperature isn't too hot. Make sure that the brooder is completely dry, no spots where water spilled into the bedding.

Yes, you can give yogurt (or another probiotic) from day one as long as you're not using any -cycline or -mycin medications. Make sure that your feed is medicated with amprolium. Anything else is an antibiotic in chick (chicken) feed. You'd want to stick with the amprolium treated only.

Use very little yogurt for younger chicks. One teaspoon per six chicks is my day 2 ration. For 9 days, you can probably do four to a teaspoon. Plain only - no bits, no flavors. Once daily.

You can also grind some oatmeal into a powder and mix a little bit with their yogurt. Or feed them a spoonful of babyfood oatmeal jarred or powdered/hydrated per four chicks at this age. It can help solidify their droppings as well as feeding the good bacteria that you're encouraging in their gut.

Good bacteria help the birds resist infection by literal competition for space. A strong colony of good bacteria in the gut will out-compete bad bacteria and fungi/yeast in normal amounts for that same space. Additionally they produce B vitamins (vital for correct development), and enzymes that help the bird literally absorb the food. They are the workers that feed your bird. Chicks are born without a colony of good bacteria in their gut. In the old days, they 'infected' themselves with GOOD bacteria by pecking their broody's fresh droppings and vent. But now instead we offer them probiotics. that's the method of how it works.

Yogurt provides D3/calcium as well for good development. But because it's a milk product, don't over do it.

If your birds continue, consider treating for coccidiosis. Coccidiosis doesn't necessarily require blood in the poop. BUT you don't want to kill the cocci completely from day one because they're required so that the chicks can develop an immunity to them which will serve them (for that species of cocci) through adulthood.

Hopefully the yogurt will help them if they'r ebattling cocci on an immunity-building basis, and the oatmeal will help with solidification of the droppings and with helping build more good bacteria.

Please feel free to email me if any of this was unclear or if you have any other questions, or just ask here.

You'll get lots of very good advice from these folks.