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- #11
- May 10, 2016
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I am not an expert, am only on my 4th brood, but the statement that she seemed to be okay until day 3 makes me suspect that it's a problem with eating/digesting.
Don't chicks survive on yolk until day 3?
Experts?
@Wyorp Rock
This is my thought process as well. She is able to swallow the food and her crop fills. She also is defecating, so the food is definitely able to move through her GI tract. However, I believe that her body is not absorbing the nutrients for one reason or another. There are a lot of potential causes. Parasites, organ failure, etc.
There is also the potential that she is just straight up not recieving enough nutrition. Chicks almost constantly eat, when they are not drinking or playing or sleeping. Its an all day process. As of right now, I am only able to get a few milliliters of volume in her in a day, and roughly half of that is water. She is not eating outside of what I am able to syringe her. Part of the problem with that process is that I have to wait for the crop to empty, otherwise I risk regurgitation and subsequent aspiration. One way to get around this is to tube feed her, which I may be able to do once I return to work. That comes with its own slew of pros and cons.
So it is also possible that she is just not receiving enough. I have an updated plan that I'm going to outline in a separate update post.