Chicks are very fast-growing birds. These birds will change every day and you may not even recognize them after a couple of weeks, but if the bird isn’t eating then complications can arise
This article explores why your two-week-old chick is not eating.
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2 Week old chick not eating:
Chicks need a few things to grow well, these things include a clean environment, warmth, water, and food. That being said, even if you are giving your baby chick food it may not be eating it.
Here is why this may be happening with your baby chick:
The bird is cold:
The temperature of the bird’s environment will affect their mood and their behavior, birds at different ages will need to be kept at different temperatures.
Birds who are a week old need to be kept in an environment where the temperature is 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature should go down by five degrees weekly after this.
If the temperature settings are too cold then your bird may not want to eat.
What to do:
You can check if this is the reason why your bird is not eating by giving it a heat lamp. If the bird starts to eat once it warms up then you can keep the heat lamp in the bird’s enclosure.
The bird is ill:
One of the other reasons why your baby chick is not eating may be that the bird has fallen ill. Chicks that are ill will develop a variety of symptoms, including a loss of appetite, if they are sick.
Other signs that indicate that your chick is ill include a pale comb or wattle, sleepiness, inactiveness, ruffled feathers, and isolating itself
Birds will try their best to not show signs that they are ill or injured so take action even when you see minor symptoms of the bird being sick.
By the time you see symptoms, the bird’s sickness may already be quite far along.
What to do:
The first step is to isolate the bird, this will hopefully keep the other birds from getting sick. The next step would be to hydrate the bird to give it a fighting chance of getting rid of the illness.
Make food available to the bird if it decides it does want to eat
Once the above is done it is recommended that you take your bird to the vet. These tiny birds are quite fragile so getting a professional to diagnose and treat the bird is recommended.
The bird is being bullied:
Another reason why your baby bird may not be eating food is that the bird is being bullied.
If your group of chicks aren’t getting enough food then the stronger of your chicks may be bullying your weaker chicks away from food.
The bullying will be so bad that the weaker chick will not even want to eat and will look on as the other birds eat while it starves.
What to do:
Giving your birds more food will solve this problem. Giving your birds more feeding stations may also help.
This will enable more birds to eat at the same time so no birds are bullied away from food stations.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Baby Chickens Vibrating, Baby Chick Cries When Pooping, Quail Chick Not Growing, Quail Chick Leg Problems, Quail Chick Feet Problems, Day Old Chick Not Eating, 5 Day Old Chick Not Eating, Lethargic Quail Chick, Baby Chick Not Moving Much