Baby Chicks Update

JIF (the chick in the back) and Moses (the front chick)

It’s been a few days since I have posted an update about our baby chicks.

Yesterday, our fourth and final chick decided to hatch.  Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly until about an hour after hatching, when the chick started to bleed all over the incubator.  Rather panic stricken, I quickly “Googled”, “bleeding chick” but couldn’t find much about it, especially after the chick has hatched. 

At that point, I just wanted to burst into tears. The last couple of days have been rather tiring with all the care of the chicks and hand feeding, etc. and with all my pregnancy emotions, just the thought of losing the chick was heart breaking to me. I decided to just proceed with my afternoon nap and hope for the best.

About an hour later, I checked in on the chick and the chick seemed weak, but alive.  It was trying to walk around a bit, but because of the bleeding, the poor thing was absolutely filthy.  Not wanting to handle the chick and restart the bleeding, I left the little thing in the incubator for the night.

The next morning, I went to go check on all of the chicks and there was the one in the incubator, staring out the glass window in the side, chirping like mad.  It seems that he knew he was separated from all of the other chicks and was none to happy about it.

This morning, I also noticed that our newest chick seemed to be having some eye issues.  He walked around the brooder with his eyes closed and couldn’t seem to find the water or food.  I “Googled” this as well, but couldn’t find a whole lot out there on this either.  I ended up taking a wet wash cloth and very carefully wiping his eye lids.  It seemed to work because after a few passes of the wash cloth, he opened his eyes.  This needed to be done several times throughout the day today, but tonight it seems like it may be getting better. Has anyone ever had that happen to them?

I’m amazed at how much I’m learning from these birds just by observing them and doing reading online about raising them.  It really has been enjoyable and the kids really liked naming them and picking favorites.

Oh, and one more thing before I go to bed.  The little chick who seemed to be having the foot/leg issues is doing 100% better.  I’m not sure if it was because of the splinting device that we used with him, or if his feet would have naturally resolved the problem.  Whatever the case, he seems to be doing much, much better but his name, Gimpy will stick forever.