Ascities (water belly) in chicks

I have had some weird ailments and losses with chicks this year that I have never had before.

Right now I have 4 chicks that are around 8 weeks old, and 2 of them are failing. To me, at this point, they should be either thriving or dead. To start going downhill at this point is NOT the norm around here.

One of them is tiny. A runt. Stunted. Literally a third as big as his hatch mates. He walks as if he is off balance, as if his leg joints aren't in the proper place. His wings droop, he looks a little ruffled. I keep expecting him to be dead. But he eats and drinks and gets run over by the bigger guys, but keeps on going. He looks like he is half their age, considering how tiny he is.

Another chick, more normal size, seems slow. I picked it up and noted with alarm the heavy, round, bulging shape of its abdomen. The skin on its belly looks bluish and stretched taut, like a drum. When I set the chick down it just laid on its side for a while before getting up and staggering around, although under normal circumstances it does not stagger and has seemed fine until I picked it up.

I have had water belly in my fast growing meat birds, and not until they were older. But the grow so fast and eat so much you'd expect such problems. That is NOT the case for these chicks. The other two of the 4 are fine and normal. I just have a bloated runt and a bloated regular size chick. This has never happened before in little birds.

Any suggestions?

Are you on a well? Too much salt coming from something? Water, feed? Does seem wierd. At this stage

Umm, this is weird, but remember, didn't you have a cochin youngster last year that had something similar? Maybe not the same thing. you know what I would do, so I would just follow through with your gut. I don't keep chicks that are not developing properly. If they are stunted, there is a reason, and I can bet my bottom dollar that if a chick is stunted, there is something "just not right". Sure, keep a runt, many people do, but my choice is not to have runts. Tough love I guess, maybe I ahve a mean streak, don't think I would call it that, just a tough view on what I want to be around I guess. You will probably never find out what the matter is and those two chicks are gonna probably die from being stormed from the larger bird one day. You KNOW what you have to do. Hope you can get to the bottom of this, and with that, have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Fuzzy, we do have well water, but how they wold get too much salt I have no idea. All the critters here drink the well water (as do we) and none have any effects.

CYnthiaM (aka The Voice of Doom) I don't mind a runt, as long as he's a happy runt. BUt these two are not looking happy. I keep hoping it's a 'phase' but I don't think it is.

I was wondering if it could be a parasite load. But then you'd think all 4 chicks, living in the same environment, would have the same condition. I suppose I could worm them and see if there is an improvement. At least if they DID improve, I would have found out that youngsters can be so wormy it will kill them. Learn something new every day! Or not.

I would try that for sure. Also for cocci if you can get your hands on some amprolium just in case.

I had read about the sodium being too high on a meat bird info page somewhere.

Fuzzy, some people I knew in AB had trouble with the sodium content in their well water. Their meat birds, both chicken and turkey, were affected the most by it.

These two were looking so wretched that I did them in.

It was horrible and it seriously bummed me out.

I do know that young birds DO get worms and it will kill them, as was the case with some meatbirds. But they did not have that bloated, awkward look these two had. THey just up and died without explanation. We found out later it was worms, when we butchered and their intestines shredded like tissue paper, full of worms and stressed to the point of bursting. GROSS! Now I worm ALL my meatbirds half way through. That gave me a case of the heebie-jeebies.

I wormed with no improvement.

I did dispatch two and was surprised to discover a 3rd also had water belly. Did not notice until I picked it up to move it. When I set it down in new location, the poor thing just laid on its side gasping and made no move to get up. Weird.

I found some Youtube videos on draining the fluid out of waterbelly birds and thought I might try that to bring some relief to this 3rd chick.

One video showed a woman with a syringe and needle stick it in the bird's belly, suck out fluid, pull it out, then repeated this process 4 more times! HELLOO! Are you stooopid? Why on earth would you stick your bird more than once and risk introducing infection when you can just stick the needle in once and attach and reattach the syringe? Like, duh!

Anyway, moving past the unthinking dumbness of some people...one video showed sticking the needle in and just letting the fluid drip out. That seemed the best course to me so that's what I planned to do. Out I went with my alcohol swab and sterile needle, had to chase the little one a bit, got it, and it died in my hand! I didn't even get the needle in it! There must have been so much pressure on those failing internal organs that the exertion of running away from me killed it! I felt horrible!

BUt since it was dead, thought I'd try my technique anyway and poked in the needle. Sure enough, out drained a clear, yellow liquid, drip, drip, drip. Too late to save the bird. BUt next time, and I hope there never is a next time, I will know what to do.

I have no idea why this is occurring. Nothing has changed with their housing, water or feed. Unless the feed store has changed how they mix their feed? It is baffling and very upsetting.