What’s wrong with my chick??

On social media posts, texts, emails, messages and phone calls, I get this question alot! It’s an easy answer and a complicated one. So let’s break it down.

Birds in general are sensitive to many things. Air quality is first and foremost. Birds need lots of fresh air! More than we do. Their lungs work differently than ours and can pick up contaminants in the air faster. For example, ammonia, their manure contains ammonia and over time, if not cleaned up well, it will permeate the air. It can get so bad, that it can burn their eyes! By the time we can smell it, its really bad for them, therefore, cleanliness is the most important avenue to fresh air.

Next up is heat, chicks need heat in a draft free location. When to take them off heat is a big question and that depends on many factors, time for another blog!

Feed and water is next. Feed should be appropriate for your species and a complete feed. No mold is super important so resist the urge to moisten it. Water should be clean and room temperature. If they are wasting feed or water is getting dirty, raise it up a bit, no higher than back level.

Genetics is last component for this topic. It’s important to get chicks from a scrupulous breeder. One that doesn’t breed birds with obvious deformities.

Now we can talk about what’s wrong with your chick!

Look over your set up, does it meet the requirements we talked about already? If not, do some fixing and come back to this point….we will wait….LOL.

Now that it does, assess all your chicks in the brooder with the concerning chicks. Is it just the one? Several? IF it’s just the one, we call that FTT or Failure to Thrive. This is an all encompassing term. In the human world, if something is wrong with a kid, we will go to the doctor and get lots of tests done to find the root cause and repair it. In the world of chicks, we don’t go to this extreme for several reasons. Money and time being at the top of the list. Next is what will we do if it’s found out it is special needs? Do we have time for it to be a pet only? Probably not. In general, we say there must be something going on internally that is not allowing this bird to process nutrition as it should and that is causing it not to thrive. It could be any number of things to heart issues, genome, colon issue, missing body parts internally, no different than a human baby could be born with an interior deformity.

In the end, the answer 99% of the time, is FTT and it’s a cull. Cull could be put in the pot for dinner. Sold as just an egg layer to a family that won’t breed it. Or keep it as a pet. Whatever decision you make, it is important to remember it has an interior issue that should not be bred to create generations of birds with issues. Also, in nature, these animals would be food for predators, leaving the strongest to multiply, and we should mimic this as closely as we can.

Leave any questions or comments below, ya never know who they may help!