12 Baby Chick Diseases to Watch Out For

If you are hatching baby chicks to raise a flock of your own, or just expanding your existing flock, you’ve got lots of excitement and cuteness to look forward to. But chicks, as cute as they are, demand extreme diligence on your part because they’re incredibly vulnerable to various diseases…

Just like our own children when they are infants, all of the following diseases are notorious for striking baby chicks particularly. Some are more common, others are exotic.
All are bad news for your babies. Learning to recognize and, if possible, treat them is just part of raising chicks.

As ever, your best weapon in the fight against disease is knowledge. Keep reading, and I’ll tell you about 12 chick diseases you’ve got to watch out for.

Omphalitis

Often referred to by the common moniker of “naval ill,” this is a bacterial infection of the umbilical stump, one that often plagues newly hatched chicks. Chicks that are improperly handled or hatched in unsanitary conditions are far more likely to suffer from it.

Look for symptoms like listlessness, a swollen and obviously inflamed naval area, and a nasty odor coming from a chick that otherwise seems clean.

Although relatively easy to treat with antibiotics, if not caught early or neglected, systemic infection is all but certain, and death likely. Death might also be likely depending on the variety of bacteria infecting the navel.

As ever, prevention is the best cure, and proper handling of eggs and chicks, along with ensuring a truly sanitary environment for hatching, will dramatically reduce instances of omphalitis.

Splay Leg / Spraddle Leg

This is a condition where a chick’s legs are splayed out to its sides, and its feet are typically rotated outboard.

It usually results from poor conditions in the brooder, often due to the use of slippery surfaces like newspaper, plastic, and so forth, but it might be caused by a troubled hatching or other injury.

Splay leg usually prevents a chick from walking correctly and sometimes might prevent them from walking at all. If not corrected quickly and with the right procedure, the condition often results in lameness or lifelong disability.

As soon as you notice a bird that’s affected by splay leg, you want to create tiny leg braces using vet wrap or Band-Aids to help keep their legs correctly positioned and oriented as they grow.

Once the chick gains enough strength, hopefully in just a week or so or even less, they should be fine…

Cross Beak / Scissorbeak

A genetic condition that is expressed when chicks are born, but is often difficult to spot.

Often known as scissor beak, it is exactly what it sounds like: the two halves of the beak, upper and lower, do not align properly, with one canting to the left and the other to the right.

As the chick grows, the disparity gets worse and worse…

Eventually, it makes it impossible for the bird to use its beak to pick things up, namely food. As a rule, it is difficult or outright impossible to correct.

Some folks claim it can be corrected through trimming of the beak, but this often results in a weak beak generally, and surgical corrections are rarely performed.

However, though some people will cull affected birds as soon as it is detected, it doesn’t have to be that way: by positioning food a little higher and making it deeper in a dish, chickens with crossbeak can still scoop up food and swallow normally using the lower half of their beak.

They lead normal lives otherwise.

Hypothermia

Baby chicks are unbelievably vulnerable to hypothermia, especially during the first few weeks of life. Even in the middle of a warm brooder that is in a warm room, chicks might still fall over dead as a result of a cold draft from a nearby window or door.

For the first week of life, chicks must be kept at 95° Fahrenheit at all times, and that temperature should be decreased by about 5° every week thereafter.

Even short exposure to cooler temperatures, to say nothing of truly cold temps, can put them in shock.

If you notice one or more chicks that aren’t standing and seem unresponsive, you need to warm them up quickly using a heat lamp or a warm water bottle. Give them time to snap out of it and they should make a full recovery.

However, significant hypothermia can cause organ and neurological damage, which is often fatal. If you find a chilled chick that is already stiff, it’s likely too late.

Pasty Butt

One of the grossest and most common diseases afflicting chicks is pasty butt, sometimes referred to conditionally as pasting up or being pasted up. Let’s get right to it: this occurs when diarrhea literally seals off the vent of a young chick.

Chicks can get diarrhea from a whole host of causes, including environmental stress, dehydration, a bad diet, germs, and more.

If you had your birds shipped to you, chances are very good at least some of them will suffer from pasty butt due to the stress of transit.

If untreated, this will invariably be fatal because chicks won’t be able to get rid of bodily waste. Luckily, it’s fairly easy to treat by soaking the affected area in warm water to loosen the stuck stool and then gently lubricating their backside with olive oil or coconut oil.

Never use petroleum jelly, and don’t pick off any stuck clumps or dingleberries! This can result in injury or even fatal tearing of their tissue.

Salmonella

You’ve doubtless heard of salmonella before when talking about chickens, and that’s usually because of people getting infected by it.

But salmonella is more than just food poisoning: this bacterial infection will rapidly affect your chicks through contaminated food, water, or a nasty brooder.

Salmonella is tricky, though, because some strains are dangerous to people and mild for chickens, lethal to chickens and mild for people, or capable of infecting chickens with few symptoms.

In any case, look out for extreme fatigue, near-total loss of appetite, severe diarrhea, and shrunken, purple combs and wattles. If you notice these symptoms, brace yourself because death is likely, though sometimes antibiotics can save an infected bird.

Something else to consider is that salmonella can go latent in an infected chick, leading to an apparent recovery. But all the while, they can spread the germ to other chickens!

Even worse, this horrible germ can survive in the environment, particularly in feathers, for up to five years!

Extensive and thorough decontamination is required in the aftermath of any confirmed infection and especially serious outbreaks; otherwise, your flock and even your own family might suffer from it for years to come!

Torticollis

Torticollis, better known as wry neck to most veteran chicken keepers, is a condition where, as the common name suggests, a chick’s head will be tilted, cocked, or twisted badly out of its normal resting position.

While sometimes caused by a genetic abnormality, a far more common cause is a vitamin or mineral deficiency, specifically selenium or vitamin E.

Torticollis makes it difficult or even impossible for chicks to maintain their balance, eat, or drink, and severe cases will usually become fatal in time due to starvation or dehydration.

Luckily, when detected, the solution is to supplement the affected bird’s diet with the necessary nutrients, and in time with supportive care if needed, they will recover. Birds that suffer from wry neck as a result of a genetic defect, though, will be affected for life.

Aspergillosis

Aspergillosis is a fungal infection, one caused by various Aspergillus mold species. Again, it is most likely that chicks will be infected as a direct consequence of a dirty living environment, specifically bedding that has gotten wet with water or urine and not changed out.

This is a pretty heinous respiratory disease that will cause pronounced and noticeable gasping and labored breathing, discharge from the nostrils, and general lethargy.

The good news is that it is fairly uncommon compared to other diseases on our list, but the chances of infection go up in direct proportion with poor ventilation and hygiene.

Chicks make a mess inside the brooder, and you’ve got to keep on top of keeping it clean and dry, and especially keeping that bedding changed out. Aspergillosis takes hold and progresses quickly, and accordingly is often fatal for chicks and difficult to treat.

Infectious Bronchitis

Bronchitis of various strains infects chickens much like it does people. Caused by different kinds of coronavirus, it causes such recognizable symptoms as coughing, hacking, labored breathing, lethargy, discharge from the nostrils, and, if it hits multiple birds, them huddling together in an attempt to stay warm.

“Chicken cold” is especially bad news for chicks because it spreads like wildfire and often hits them when they are young, usually around a month old or less. If one chick gets it, chances are they will all have it. Regrettably, it’s also quite difficult to treat since it mutates so often…

Supportive care and a slight temperature increase are called for, and though most older chicks will recover, it can be quite lethal for those that are only a couple of weeks old. In any case, infected birds often show reduced growth and depressed egg production later in life.

Marek’s Disease

This is an infamous and extremely contagious viral disease in the herpes family. It can strike chickens at any stage of life, but it impacts chicks the worst.

The most notable symptoms of Marek’s disease are visible, large tumors and outright paralysis, often starting with total paralysis of the legs or wings, and often vision problems, manifesting as cloudy or pale eyes later on in life.

Mortality rates in chicks are quite high, and unfortunately, there is no cure. Flocks can be vaccinated, and this is often the first vaccine that chicks will get. Vaccinated birds can still catch the disease, but it is far less severe, and vaccination greatly reduces transmission.

Something you should keep in mind is that chickens infected with Marek’s on larger farms are typically culled to prevent the spread both within and without; you should consider doing the same.

Coccidiosis

Coccidiosis is another common chick disease and, sadly, one of the most devastating and fatal. Caused by parasitic protozoa, chicks are incredibly vulnerable to it due to their underdeveloped immune system response.

They’ll usually contract this nasty bug from food, water, or bedding that has been contaminated with fecal matter or other tainted biological waste.

Symptoms include severe diarrhea, listlessness, poor feather condition, and decreased appetite or refusal of food entirely.

Cleanliness is the best prevention, but it can be treated with the administration of specialty anti-coccidial medications, and vaccination is an increasingly viable defense.

Make sure you keep the brooder for your chicks clean and refreshed at all times, and only buy chicks from hatcheries and breeders that use good care practices.

The prognosis of coccidiosis is variable: with treatment, sometimes chicks get better and live out a normal life, but it has up to a 50% mortality rate even with treatment, and chicks that survive a severe case often suffer reduced quality of life.

Necrotic Enteritis

A truly ghoulish and typically fatal disease, necrotic enteritis, commonly known as rot gut, sometimes occurs as a standalone infection by Clostridium perfringens or as a secondary infection brought on by coccidiosis.

Symptoms are horrendous and include putrescent, awful diarrhea, and severe weakness. It is especially prevalent and devastating to overcrowded brooders, and though nominally treatable with antibiotics, once symptoms have manifested it’s usually too late for infected chicks.

Without swift intervention, rot gut can devastate an entire flock of chicks because the foul, infectious diarrhea will readily contaminate all surfaces, food, and water sources. If suspected, your best bet is to immediately administer the appropriate antibiotics in the flock’s water supply.