Chick suddenly acting off - injury or illness?

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Update: not a lot of change but his appetite has returned. If I hold him up to eat he'll gobble but I have to make sure he gets food/water because he can't stand up long enough by himself to do it. It is so baffling because it does look like some kind of joint problem but the joints aren't injured/swollen/hot. He can stand up normally and use the legs normally for short periods of time but if he tries to walk he looks like a horrible little puppet on strings because he locks the joints to keep them from failing on him. His toes are still curling under when he takes steps forward, which trips him, then he loses his balance and tumbles. He spends most of the day in 1 spot chatting to mom or napping. I'm really hoping he will improve more - he will probably always have a weird gait/limp but I'd like him to be able to eat/drink on his own and move normally. Otherwise I will have to consider his quality of life and make a decision.
 
Update: well, I have no idea what happened, but he is almost recovered! Running around on little peg legs but he is running and the body shaking/trembling has stopped. He and his mom had a jail break and I found them flopping around in the dirt across the yard this morning. They spent the day in the yard like nothing happened and came right back up to the porch to go into the laundry room for the night.

He got a lot less sweet now that he's feeling better :rolleyes: (for the record this doesn't bother me - I'm allergic to feather dander and handle my birds as little as possible I just find it funny he's got places to be at 4 weeks).
 
Well, he's still going along, but I think it is less because he's doing better and more he's learning to cope with things. Unfortunately, he had something that looked like a seizure this morning - I've seen the tail end of these fits before and didn't know what had happened (he looks dazed with his wing pinned under him like he tripped). He pulls out of them and acts like nothing happened after about 30-60 seconds but I suspect it is only a matter of time before he has a medical issue or an accident gets the fellow. His quality of life is still reasonably good (no signs of pain or chronic distress, still completely mobile, eating and drinking, etc.) so I will probably end up building him a special area in the coop, since he can't perch or fly properly. Mom is still taking excellent care of him but she wants to go back to bed with the flock, and the flock wants their head hen back - they all loiter outside the coop at dusk because the mom wants to go in but is torn about whether baby is ready. Its a shame things are going this way for the little guy. I'd really hoped he'd pull out of it.
 
Haven't updated because it wasn't looking good - he suddenly completely lost the use of a leg and had his toes locked in a curl. I nearly euthanized but as a last try I gave him some of the neuro supplements I take for my health issues. To my surprise, the ALA seemed to work - I looked it up online and there is scientific literature of use of ALA in broiler chicks to combat wooden breast. Obviously not what my guy had going on but at least I felt like I wasn't poisoning him and got a better handle on dosing. It must not taste grand to chickens though because I have to fight him to eat it. He went from completely unable to stand to hopping around with aid of a splayed leg hobble. Hoping to take the hobble off soon and replace it with a stiff splint to make sure the hip muscle is recovering properly. It has been a wild ride. He's a seramaX so he's already small but I suspect he'll always be super tiny and behave a bit babyish if he makes it to adulthood.
 
Well it's been a baffling few months, but I'd like to close this thread out on the positive: little fellow is about 85% recovered and appears to be improving slowly but surely.

He still has some balance issues, his automatic foot responses are slow (like grabbing things when hopping up on stuff) and he has essential tremors on/off but...

He can walk and run almost normally, and jumps/hops all over. He's in the process of learning how to balance while flying and roosting. He & mom have vacated the laundry room to sleep in the coop with the other chickens (finally OMG although the laundry room now has some canaries and doves I'm acclimating to the outdoors in it now LOL). More and more he's acting his age, wandering away from mom/not crying over everything/play fighting with the other chickens - unfortunately he doesn't have any siblings and I don't have any way to get bantam pullets his age at this time of year but if he recovered enough I hope to find him a flock of other seramas or some silkies to live with or someone who wants a house chicken (he has no problems sitting on the couch to watch tv with people LOL).
 

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