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I was told I should try to get my weak baby chuck to lap up some turkey baby food to build up his strength. He is drinking water when I stick his mouth up to it, so I'd imagine it might work. Anyone heard of/tried this?

He's just a baby and is really not getting enough food. He spends most of the day lying flat, occasionally moving around to thermoregulate.
Dan

Could you describe your set up a bit in terms of furnishings, size, temps etc? Sometimes the experts on here can find little things that need tweaking that you may not have even considered.

I'm not sure about the turkey babyfood, with chucks being herbivorous I'd be more inclined to try something like sweet potato, squash, bannana, etc. But, maybe someone else will chime in.

Have you tried waxworms? They're very high in fat, my little guy really liked them.

Is your chuck wc or cb?

-Alice

thanks Alice, and John for all your advice. I've posted a picture of my baby chuck (notice how his back "sinks in" and he appears skinny around the tail area?) Chucka can fool you, when they puff up with air they look like Macy's floats, then a little he looks like a flat tire.
My setup is 40"Wx18Dx20tall. 100-105 on the hot side, 82-85 on the cool side. From what I've read, that's dead-on. Plenty of ventilation. fake logs and things to climb on/under. I know I should have more rocks for the chuck, but I need to disinfect them in 1% bleach.
The baby food idea is meant to pump some protien and fat into him. It's a turkey vegetable medley. I put some on his snout and he did lick it. He's still very lethargic, and when I got him he was quite active. I assume he's WC, bought him from a place called Global Exotics.
At this point, should I use a feeding tube and pump some water into him? I still have some od Doug Dix's "critical care" powder from when I had a uro.
Dan

the cage...
Dan

the only thing I could suggeste is taping some paper over the front of the cage to reduce of the stress of seeing out the front. It sucks you you not to be able to see in, but may benefit while the chuck makes its recovery.

I would suggest a syring and tube to give some feedings every few hours during the light cycle. That chuck looks like it's in pretty bad shape. Way too skinny. Probably only a couple cc's of food product at a time, and be certain it goes down past the throat, or you will be pumping food into the lungs. Just a little bit at a time. You may try building a cheap outdoor cage so you can give the little guy some natural sunlight too while digesting some food. Try some natural foods...puree some of the veggies that were mentioned.

Good luck,

John Eddington

I have two juvies and they are very heathy, I feed them almost anything that I can find. they seem to like flowers more than
anything. I live in montana and we have deer and I watch to see what the deer eat to make sure it wont kill them first.I have them for what I think is two months now and I can start to see the pores behind ones leg and he is also loosing some of his color on his tail. but the other one does not have the pores and had lots of color on it's tail. Also let me add in that these are wild caught.
OH do not put the banana on your finger unless you wanna see one bite you it scared me the first time because it bit me and scared me...but it didnt hurt... I am also 14 on 5/31 so this show that even a teenager can take care of these.. I love them

Do you still have that one? Some of the wildcaughts will never eat. Is that the place that had a pic with like 20 chucks piled on each other? Everything looks ok and if the temps are good try to keep him hydrated by getting its mouth open and giving water wuith a small syringe. Maybe he will turn around but he looks really thin.

no Tom, the one from you was a great specimen, but I wanted to raise one from a baby so I ended up selling yours and buying this baby. In retrospect I should have kept yours. And yeah, it was from that place that had dozens of them piled up in the ad. I kept the desert ig though, he's doing fantastic. Do you have any more redbacks in case this little guy doesn't make it?

I just mixed Gerber green bean baby food with Gatorade and got him to take some.
Dan

Try the wax worms as Alice mentioned...some insects may help.

If he opens his mouth for you when you hold him, this might help, especially if the syringe feeding doesn't work out... Chop up some bannana, so that it's bite size and put it in a little dish of water, then pop the chunks in his mouth one at a time. You can do the same with most veggies and can also give things like moistened rep-cal juvie iguana diet. Usually you have to get the whole chunk in or it will be spit out. I'd try to get about 10% of his body weight in food / fluids into him. If he keeps it down, and his weight is still dropping, up the amount a little. It would also help to weigh him before and after feedings so that you can tell whether you're losing or gaining ground.

I think that being able to squeeze between a few rocks also has big psychological benefits. I put my rocks in the oven at 250 for about 15 minutes to disinfect them. Rocks placed under the heat lamp will retain the heat long after the light goes out. My chucks have both chosen sleeping spots on the warm side, probably to take advantage of this. If you stack a couple rocks so that there's about 1/2" of space between them, that would make a great hide for a chuck his size. I'd try to give him at least 4 or 5 hides to chose from, and locate the food dish near a hide so that he doesn't feel exposed visiting it.

I also agree 100% about covering the front. If you want to peak in, leave a little 6" by 6" square open in one of the upper corners.

If you can get him to take things like wax worms on his own, or if he starts eating veggies etc. Discontinue the force feeding for awhile and see if he maintains his weight. Force feeding is very stressful and the sooner you can stop the better. Handling should also be kept to a bare minimum.

-Alice

Try feeding him some of your desert iggy's fresh stool. Baby chucks need the stomach flora to digest their food. Since they are vegetarians, they get it from following a little too closely to the big guys. My sulcatta used to follow behind our labrador. ewwww! There might be some pro-biotics that you can substitute but time may be short.
You also need to give him a good soaking and force fluids (Gatorade) to hydrate him.

I don't know if this will help but I've had to nurse a few chucks back to health....

Its been a couple of years but I cut the end off of a 1cc syringe...so it was a hollow tube with a plunger.... I mixed up some canned dogfood (yes I know bad...I probably should have used baby food, but I wanted to get protien in 'em to fatten them up) with origional peadilite (baby isle)....I like peadilite better than gatoraide because it is designed to re hydrate babies that have have diarreha..... plus it doesn't have any "flavor" added if you buy the clear/origional formula (it does expire really qwuick once opened).... I also mixed in some vitamins....

Sometimes you can rub the bottom of their jaw to get them pissed(ie OPENING THEIR mouth)...then you can put the syringe into their mouth...they'll usually bite down on it.

If not, you can try prying their mouth open with a credit card/drivers license.... be careful not to cut up their mouth doing this... a skinny chuck with moutth rot is even worse!

The beneficial bacteria they are talking about is availiable at most pet stores...its called "Beneabac" or something like that... People use it with small animals, birds, and herps!

Its alot of work, but stick to it...theres nothing else you can do.....

PLUS your on a good fourm with lots of experienced chuck keepers!

Graham

The beneficial bacteria they are talking about is availiable at most pet stores...its called "Beneabac" or something like that... People use it with small animals, birds, and herps!

I'm glad you knew about that. I had only heard of some pro-biotics that had to be ordered on line.

Trade a Greb chuck for a wild caught? Yeah, right! How bright is that? (Come on. I know everyone here was thinking the same thing. It was just too easy!)