This fellows droopy eyes and listlessness told me he just wasn't well.

Sometimes a chick arrives at your house and it’s just not healthy.  We had one of these in our first batch of meat birds.  I noticed the morning of the second day that it just wasn’t behaving quite right.  It didn’t hang out with the other chicks, it seemed tired, it’s eyes were droopy and it preferred to lay around.  Lots of chicks lay around because growing so fast is tiring work, but usually when you stick your hand in they jump up and run away.  This one toddled to another area, but not very fast, and then it just tipped over again.

Unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do at this stage.  I made sure that it was drinking and added an electrolyte mix to the water to prevent dehydration and promote healthy bone growth.  But by the third day it was dead.

I checked with our chick supplier and Danielle explained that sometimes chicks arrive in poor condition.  She said that they don’t have any disease that the others can get, so I didn’t have to worry about the rest of the birds.  She also replaced the chick at no charge the next time we picked up a batch of meat chicks.