a sick chick

Thursday night we came home went to the barn to chores and were in for a bit of a shock! We been gone for most of the day and wondered how all the chicks made out, but knew that momma was there to defend and protect them so didn't worry too much. Well being away from them nearly all day we wanted to see them when we got back so we lifted momma up and peeked under her and saw only 4 babies. I got an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach and looked around the coop for the other one. Apparently it had fallen out of the nest and had been there for quite a while as it was very cold and stiff when I picked it up. Thinking it was dead Faith started to cry and fret, it was her favorite chick! Now called Lilac. I know that grandmothers aren't supposed to have favorites but clearly some do! When I picked it up it opened it's mouth and nothing came out but I was trying so hard to let me know it was alive but really close to death. I told Faith to put it under her shirt and up next to her body, so that we'd at least give it a fighting chance of survival, but that at this point it was not looking good. I wonder exactly how close to death this poor thing was, it was in bad shape. I sped through the barn chores and we rushed into the house, all the time Faith was crying and so worried about her baby. I was honest with her, I see no point in not, I wanted to prepare her for what I thought was coming, told her that she needed to relax because panicking won't ever help the situation. Relax and breathe is what I tell her, though I really cannot blame her, she gets it from my mother, mom and Faith seems to always go to worst case scenario in panic mode and anything that doesn't end up happening is good! Weird, but it works for them. Anyway, I turned the brooder lamp on, had Andrew get a box lined with newspaper ready and I mixed a batch of sugar, salt, and warm water together and got the eye dropper out.
I knew I had to act quickly and get something warm into this chick Faith was counting on it. She sat by the fire with her baby and we began feeding it with the eye dropper.

She had calmed down after a bit and the chick opened it's eyes, after a few more drops it started trying to peep again, and Faith started crying again only this time tears of joy and relief.

What we were doing seemed to be working, Andrew wanted to help as well.

By this time it was about midnight and we were exhausted! Faith asked if she could sleep downstairs next to the chick and I said ok. She slept on the love seat next to the chick all night. Watching, praying, waiting and hoping.

We got up the next morning and were quite relieved to find the chick had survived (I had an idea that it would be just fine several times during the night when it was peeping loudly enough to wake me up, did I mention several times?) and was peeping loudly until Faith picked it up. Later in the morning Andrew was holding it and it climbed up here.

I trust my dog.

Shortly after we woke and found the chick to be doing well we put it back out with it's mom and went on about our day without incident. Everybody is now doing well.