Help with Zebra finch chick

[crimson]

Hi everyone,

One of my zebra chicks is having a difficult time. This is my zebras very first clutch and they have 3 chicks, the other 2 are very healthy.

They are around 5 weeks old now and spend a lot of time out of their nest, this baby started struggling last week, I heard a clicking noise coming from it as it breathed and a lot of mucus in its beak. I didn't know what to do so I used a cotton bud to gently wipe away the mucus; and also ended up removing a lot of gunk and what I think was undigested seed from the crop. All seemed fine afterwards the baby went back to normal.

All of a sudden today the symptoms have started again, the chick is sitting on the lowest perch, not moving around and has its eyes closed. It's wings are dropped and the tail is bobbing and again has a lot of mucus in the beak and I can even see it blowing little bubbles from the sides of the beak. It occasionally shakes it's tail sideways followed by a high pitched sound like gas escaping? The clicking noise has been going on for hours now.

Also I'd like to add all of the chicks are fed by the parents not hand fed. I provide quality finch seed, millet spray, oyster shell grit, cuttle bone as well as egg food and greens occasionally. I have added vitamin / mineral drops to the water and have been applying mite powder as a precaution but I don't think this is mites. The cage is kept very clean and perches are cleaned daily.

Any advice / suggestions on what this could be or how to treat it? It's been about 8 hours now and the chick is still struggling.

[crimson]

Hi guys,

Unfortunately this little one hasn't made it through the night and I think one of the other chicks is starting to show signs as I can hear a faint clicking noise when breathing. When I'm watching it seems the parent birds are trying to feed the two remaining chicks literally every two minutes? The hen will feed them then the male will come to feed them and this happens on repeat.

Is it possible they are being overfed and the crop is becoming slow or could the parents be feeding wrong and causing the chicks to aspirate? Again they aren't hand fed only fed by the parents.

I'm really worried about this because I don't want to lose the other two chicks, I just want to find out what's causing this and find out how to stop it.

Thanks

- Crimson

[Sally]

I'm not a vet, so not qualified to give medical advice, but you will need to find out what is going on in your flock. If you have an avian vet nearby, he/she could tell you what is happening. One possibility of the symptoms you list is canker. I wish I could be more help.

[crimson]

Thank you for responding to my post, unfortunately there are no vets where I live that will look at birds. I have contacted the store I originally bought the birds from but they have no idea what this could be.

The adult birds have not changed at all and appear fine this just seems to be a problem with the chicks; the first sign I've noticed are white marks on the beak; as if the beak itself is crumbling away? followed by fatigue, closed eyes / fluffing up. When the popping / clicking noise starts that's when the mucus can be seen in the beak.

I can't find anything similar to this online and needless to say this is a worry.

[lovezebs]

crimson

I'm so sorry about your babies.
We don't have a Vet on the Forum, and it's impossible to diagnose just by reading about the symptoms.

Here is a link which might be of some help....
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=w ... Cdss3CWFIg

Good luck.

[peewee]

The white line on the babies' beaks will slowly disappear as they grow older. I'm sorry, I don't know about the other issues. Best of luck.