At our vet this weekend, we learned something very important about giving pills or liquids orally to a chicken. She said that the wind pipe opening is right at the base of a chicken's tongue so if you give a pill or a syringe full of liquid (water, medicine, nutrients), it's best to do it off to the side of the mouth.
She said that healthy birds are good at closing their wind pipe automatically when you try to put something in their mouths so it's not as big a worry with them. But with sick birds, they often don't have control of their wind pipes so even if you do everything right, you can end up putting stuff down the wrong pipe.