How to Care for a Sick Baby Chick
by Alexa Lehr | The Pioneer Chicks | May 30, 2023
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Chicks are often hardier than we give them credit to be, but they are also small and dependant when they are young. Food and water are essential for fueling a growing chick and keeping it nourished and hydrated. Chicks also rely on an external heat source when they are young since their down feathers make it difficult for them to maintain a proper body temperature. If they don’t have the proper food, water, heat, or a clean brooder, their health will decline rapidly. Like most young animals, chicks also don’t have a strong immune system developed yet for fighting disease. That means they are more vulnerable when exposed to sources of disease or parasite. Learning how to recognize when a chick is ailing and knowing what to do to help a chick recover can help you raise a healthy homestead brood!

How to Tell if a Chick is Sick

Being able to recognize even the earliest symptoms of an ailing chick can mean a world of difference when it comes to helping the chick recover quickly. However, like adult chickens, chicks will try to hide their weakness for as long as possible to avoid being bullied by the rest of the brood.

It is helpful to know some of the main causes for a chick to become ill so that you can both prevent sickness and recognize when a trigger may cause illness in your brood. Here are some main causes for a chick to get sick.

Causes of Illness in Chicks:

• malnourishment– the chick is not able to eat properly, can’t access food, or the feed is not nutritious
• dehydration– a chick isn’t drinking enough and/or can’t access water
• chilling or overheating– being chilled or overheated can lead to death for a chick
• exposure to disease– exposure to disease can come from a dirty brooder, adult chickens, outside sources, or contaminated feed and water
• viruses, parasites, bacteria, protozoa, & fungal infections– all of these can cause disease and illness in chicks and chickens
• physical deformities– physical defomities like a crossbeak, crooked toes, splayed leg, or wry neck can prevent a chick from being properly nourished

Knowing the signs of a healthy chick and the proper activities for a healthy brood can help you recognize when a chick is not feeling right. Make sure you read this article on How to Tell if a Chick is Healthy so you can recognize healthy chicks, whether you are picking out chicks from the feedstore or trying to keep your brood healthy on the homestead.

In addition to knowing what a healthy chick looks like, you should also be able to recognize these signs of a sick chick. Here are some chick symptoms and what they could potentially indicate.

Signs of a Sick Chick:

• unhealthy poops– diarrhea, bloody droppings, excess bile (green), excess urates (white), runny & watery, especially stinky
• malnourishment– thin, light, weak, unresponsive
• dehydration– weak, excessively thirsty when given access to water
• lethargy– not moving around the brooder, laying down
• chilled– huddled position, loud cheeping, unresponsive
• overheated– panting, laying down, unresponsive
• pasty butt– droppings stuck to the vent
• discharge from eyes, nostrils, or mouth– sneezing, wheezing, coughing
• stunted growth– chick is not maturing at the normal rate
• loud, shrill cheeping– chilled, hungry or thirsty, pain

Now that you know how to recognize a sick chick, let’s go over the actions you need to take to help a sick chick recover. The sooner you can recognize a sick chick and jump into action, the better chance you have at helping the chick get back to good health.

How to Set up an Infirmary Brooder

If the chick is to the point of being unresponsive or extremely lethargic, you will need to set up an infirmary brooder. The infirmary brooder doesn’t have to be big. It just has to supply the chick with the basic needs of survival: food, water, and heat.

Here are some essentials for an infirmary brooder:

• brooder options– small cardboard box, small plastic produce carton, small wagon, etc…
• litter– paper towel is the best infirmary brooder litter since it is easy for a weak chick to navigate and it allows you to monitor the chick’s poops easier
• water source options– shallow chick drinker, small bowl with pebbles or marbles to prevent drowing
• feeder options– chick crumbles sprinkled on floor of brooder, chick feeder, small bowl of feed
• heat source– radiant heater (best option), heat lamp (harder to control proper brooder temperature)

More than likely, if the chick has reached the point of needing to be quarantined in an infirmary brooder, it won’t care if it is by itself of not. However, keep in mind that loud, robust cheeping may mean the chick is lonely and is not a sign of illness. If the chick is lonely and you don’t think that its ailment is contagious, consider putting another chick in the infirmary brooder for companionship.

A healthy, active chick can also encourage an ailing chick to interact, eat, and drink like normal. If you think the sick chick is ailing with a contagious disease, don’t the rest of your brood to the sick chick. Sometimes keeping the infirmary brooder near the rest of the brood can allow the sick chick to at least hear the other chicks.

Sick Chick Diagnosis Tips

In most cases, if a chick is ill with a serious ailment, such as a contagious disease, virus, or infection, the disease will work through the chick’s system so fast that you won’t have time to help the chick recover. However, if a chick is ailing from malnourishment, dehydration, or a various other common chick ailment, then you have a good chance of helping the chick recover through proper care.

Here are some common chick ailments to be aware of so that you can help a sick chick recover.

Common Chick Ailments:

• pasty butt– Pasty butt causes a blockage and does not allow a chick to eliminate waste properly. It can lead to a deadly infection if not treated right away. See this guide for treating pasty butt in chicks!
• chilled– If a chick becomes too chilled, it will become unresponsive and limp. Hypothermia will set in and the chick’s heart rate will slow down. Early signs of chilling include loud, shrill cheeping, lethargy, and repeated pasty butt issues.
• overheated– If a chick’s body temperature rises too high, it will suffer from heat stroke, become unresponsive, and eventually the condition will lead to death.
• splay leg– A chick with splayed legs may have difficulty moving around the brooder and accessing food, water, and heat.
• crooked toes– While crooked toes rarely inhibit a chick too much, severe cases of crooked toes may inhibit a chick from moving around properly.
• wry neck– A chick with wry neck will not be able to eat or drink properly and will become malnourished.
• crossbeak– Depending on the severity of the crossbeak condition, the chick may not be able to eat or drink properly and will become malnourished and dehydrated.
• coccidiosis– This parasite can cause blood droppings, stunted growth, and eventually death in young chicks. Check out this guide for preventing or treating cocci naturally in chicks.
• bumblefoot– Chicks can get bumblefoot from perching at too young of an age. If the bumblefoot infection is not treated, it can spread into the bloodstream and become deadly.

If caught soon enough, all of these chick ailments can be treated. Once you diagnosis the cause for a chick to be sick, take immediate action to help the chick recover. Conditions such as chilling, overheating, pasty butt, and coccidiosis can lead to death if they are not treated right away.

Tips for Helping a Chilled Chick:

A chick will become chilled if it does not sufficiently fluff out in the incubator before being move to the brooder. A chick can also become chilled if it cannot access supplemental heat, if it becomes wet, or if it is exposed to cold drafts in the brooder or on outside field trips. For minor cases of chilling, helping the chick have access to a warm, draft-free environment can prevent the chilling from progressing to hypothermia. A heat lamp or a radiant heater can supply a warm environment for young chicks.

For a chick suffering from hypothermia, you will need to expose the chick to heat immediately. That will help increase the chick’s body temperature which will restore the chick’s normal heart rate and encourage responsiveness. Warm heating pads (like a heated rice bag) can be excellent tools for warming up a chilled chick. Be careful when using a heat lamp to warm up a chilled chick. Heat lamps are a very powerful source of heat and can cause overheating.

Once the chick has warmed up you should be able to see some responsiveness such as cheeping or movement. Encourage the chick to drink and eat for nourishment. Keep the chick in a warm environment to prevent it from becoming chilled again.

Tips for Helping an Overheated Chick:

Overheating is more of a problem when using a heat lamp in the brooder or if the ambient temperature in the brooding space becomes too hot from direct sunlight or hot temperatures. An overheated chick can become unresponsive if it can’t lower its body temperature fast enough. Overheating will lead to death faster than chilling.

An overheated chick should be removed from the source of heat as soon as possible and kept in a more temperate, but not cold, environment. Sometimes standing the chick in cool/room temperature water can help lower its body temperature. Avoid getting the chick wet since a wet chick can become chilled quickly even if it was suffering from overheating.

As the chick’s body temperature lowers, you should see some signs of responsiveness such as cheeping and movement. Encourage the chick to eat and drink for nourishment. Place the chick back in the brooder. Evaluate if the brooder heat source needs to be raised or if the brooder needs to be moved to a more temperate location.

#1. Start with Hydration

No matter the cause of sickness, hydration is key to helping a sick chick recover. In any case, you should encourage a chick to drink before eating food. This can help prevent pasty butt, and often times sources of hydration can provide calories and nourishment too.

Encourage a sick to drink by gently dipping its beak into the water source. I like to hold the chick in one hand and gently press its head down until the tip of its beak is in the water. Generally, the chick will then take a sip on its own and may even go back for more sips of its own will. Avoid using a syringe to get water into a young chick’s beak. The water could accidentally be forced into the chick’s windpipe instead of its esophagus.

You may have to encourage a sick chick to drink on an hourly basis if it is not moving around on its own yet. Keep the water source, feeder, and heat source all close together so that the sick chick doesn’t have to move far in order to eat, drink, and stay warm.

Fresh water that is room temperature is a good starting point for hydrating a sick chick. However, water is also a great carrier for natural supplements that can provide calories and nourishment to an ailing chick who isn’t eating sufficiently. Here are some natural supplements you can add to water for aiding a sick chick.

Natural Supplements for Water:

• raw honey (1 T. per 1 cup of water)– provides calories and is naturally antibacterial, antiviral, and full of antioxidants
• probiotics– promotes good gut flora for proper digestion and strengthening the immune system
• herbal tonics– choose herbal tonics that will nourish or help treat the ailment of a sick chick
• vitamin, mineral, & electrolytes– provides essential nutrition and helps keep a chick hydrated
• garlic (1 crushed clove per 4 cups of water)– antiviral, antibacterial, and strengthens the immune system

Avoid using apple cider vingar since the nutrition that it would provide is minimal compared to the supplements listed above. Raw honey water should only be supplied for a day or two since it is high in natural sugars. Too much sugar water can cause pasty butt. The other supplements should also be used in moderation, and not supplied for longer than 2-3 days. Too much electrolytes and probiotics can upset the natural electrolyte and probiotic balance in a chick’s body.

Replace the supplemented water with fresh water. You can rotate natural supplements or alternate between supplemented water and fresh water for both a sick chick or for a healthy brood.

#2. What to Feed a Sick Chick

After hydration, nutrition is second best way to help an ailing chick recover. Newly hatched chicks can survive on the absorbed egg yolk for 48-72 hours after hatching. However, it is best to encourage a chick to start eating as soon as possible. Food will provide the energy and nutrients needed by a chick’s body as it continually grows.

A high-protein chick starter crumble feed should be the main diet for any chicks, healthy or ailing. A quality chick starter feed should contain the protein and essential nutrients needed by chicks on a daily basis. It is the best feed to get a sick chick back on its feet. However, natural supplements and nutritious snacks can be used to encourage a sick chick to eat, to supplement the nutrients in the chick feed, or to treat a diagnosed ailment.

How to Feed a Sick Chick:

Encourage a sick chick to eat by sprinkling food on the floor of the infirmary brooder and gently pecking around in the feed. This will stimulate a mama hen or other chicks ‘pecking’ around in the feed and the chick will instinctually know that its food to eat. If the chick is unresponsive or too weak to eat, you may have to force-feed the chick.

Only force-feed a chick after you have helped it get hydrated or given it a drink of water. Then gently open the chick’s beak and drop a chick feed crumble into its beak. Allow the chick to close its beak and swallow the morsel of feed on its own. Only do this 4-5 times so as not to stress the chick out too much. You can repeat the feeding schedule on an hourly basis until the chick starts eating on its own.

Encourage a chick to start eating chick starter feed first, then introduce in some nutritious natural supplements.

Natural Supplements for Chicks:

• whole oats– add fiber and protein to the diet (gluten-free rolled oats)
• cooked egg– provide all the essential nutrients needed by chicks
• dried grubs– supply supplemental protein and mimic a naturally foraged diet (Grubblies)
• Brewer’s yeast– rich in B2 which promotes good bone development and nervous system health (Brewer’s yeast for chickens)
• kelp– rich in supplemental vitamins and minerals (kelp for chickens)
• herbs– oregano, dandelion, parsley, basil

Use natural supplements in moderation so as not to dilute the nutrition supplied in the chick starter feed. Chicks are small, so they eat small portions of feed (but their daily feed consumption increases as they grow). Small portions of natural supplements should be balanced with a chick’s daily intake of feed. In general, 1 teaspoon of natural supplements daily is sufficient per chick.

You can increase that amount as the chick matures or if you are treating an ailment with a specific dosage of natural supplement.

Being able to recognize a sick chick as soon as possible is important for giving it the best chance of recovery. A chick can appear sick for any number of reasons, but a little food, water, and heat will usually cure any ailment that isn’t disease related. Help your brood stay healthy by ensuring they have access to plenty of fresh water, a nutritious chick starter feed, and a safe heat source. Keep the brooder clean and incorporate some natural supplements into their diet. When a chick does become ill, know how to take action immediately to help the chick recover and rejoin your homestead brood!

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