Food is of the utmost importance for all animals, especially babies, baby chicks included.
Food will allow these little birds to grow. So, if your baby chick has trouble swallowing you’d be right to be worried.
This article looks into why this happens
Table of Contents
Baby chick having trouble swallowing:
Any odd behavior, especially in your baby chick, should be addressed as soon as possible.
A change in behavior may be nothing, or, it may mean that the bird is ill.
Here is why your baby chick may have issues swallowing:
Food in the crop:
Your baby chick is small and can’t eat too much food at a time.
When the bird does eat food, the food will be temporarily stored in a pouch in the bird’s body called the crop.
The crop allows chickens to eat large quantities of food while out in the wild, then fly off and have the food digest later on when the bird is in a place of safety.
If you notice that there is a bulge at the bottom of your baby bird’s throat, then this may simply be food accumulating in the crop.
This food will go down soon enough
What to do:
This is quite normal and happens with all chicks and chickens. The crop will empty its contents into the birds stomach soon enough.
If the bird’s crop is not emptying, then the bird may have crop impaction.
Crop impaction:
Crop impaction happens when the bird eats foreign objects, grasses, or litter which causes a blockage in the bird’s crop.
The food that your bird eats will be swallowed but will not move past the crop into the bird’s stomach.
What to do:
This condition is usually remedied by isolating the bird, only giving it water to drink for 24 hours, and then massaging the crop after giving the bird some olive oil to lubricate its throat.
However, because the bird is so young and fragile, if this doesn’t work it is advised that you quickly take the bird to the vet.
The bird may need surgery.
Canker:
If your baby chick has trouble swallowing, then it may have a condition called canker.
This condition causes yellow, cheesy-like sores to form in the back of the bird’s throat.
These sores make swallowing difficult for the bird.
Other signs of this condition in your bird include yawning, gasping for air, reduced feed and water intake, swelling at the throat, nose, or eyes, inability to close the beak, drooling, and a strong smell coming from the bird’s mouth to name a few.
What to do:
Take a look into your bird’s mouth if you suspect your bird has this condition.
You’ll be able to see the lesions at the back of the chick’s throat if your bird has this condition.
This condition can be treated with antiparasitic medication.
Treatments for this condition include carnidazole, dimetridazole, and metronidazole.
You would also need to isolate this bird from the rest of your flock to keep the condition from spreading.
Gapeworm:
Gapeworm is a parasitic infection of thin, red worms that infect chickens, and other birds, and live in their trachea.
This condition is also known as forked worm and redworm
Signs of this condition include struggling to swallow, wheezing, hissing, open-mouth breathing, coughing, and gaping in an effort to dislodge the worms.
Your bird’s body can seem fine when infected with a certain level of the parasite, but once the parasites have reproduced past this point, then action needs to be taken.
What to do:
Treatment for this condition is to give the bird two rounds of a dewormer.
The first round will kill off the adult worms in the bird’s body.
The next round will kill off the young worms that hatched from the eggs of the adult worms.
Treatment will need to be given to the whole flock and the time between the two treatments is usually around 7-14 days.
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 Cockatiel Not Begging For Food, Baby Chick Losing Weight, Why Is My Chicken Not Gaining Weight, Chick Not Gaining Weight, Baby Chick Feathers Not Fluffy, Chicken Trouble Swallowing, How To Help A Choking Chicken, Chicken Looks Like It’s Choking, Chicken Can’t Swallow Food