Chicken Acting Dizzy (ish)

[Forkicks]

Good afternoon,

I'm having an issue with one of my hens. She is acting kind of off balance and her head is tilting to the right. I was thinking it could be some type of inner ear infection which I have no clue how to treat or maybe it's something else entirely. I've called my local vet and they don't handle chickens so I'm going to have to try and save her myself. If anyone has any ideas of what I could do to help her, I would greatly appreciate it!

I'm going to be separating her from the flock and putting a little heat lamp in with her. Not sure if there is some type of vitamin or off the counter antibiotic I could try and give her?

 

[azygous]

The symptoms represent a variety of causes. This is more likely than not a vitamin and/or glucose deficiency, easily treated.

What is your location? Have you had sudden temperature swings? How old is this chicken? Is she currently laying? Has she had egg shell quality issues?

Right now, give her some sugar water - one teaspoon sugar in one cup warm water. See if she improves in an hour on this.

To treat a possible vitamin deficiency, give her one gel cap into her beak of vitamin E400iu. Give another later in the day. You should see improvement immediately or within 24 to 48 hours.

If she appears to have weak legs, meaning she may not be able to stand and walk although she can still move her legs on her own, give her vitamin B complex, one tablet in the beak once a day for two to four weeks.

 

[Forkicks]

She is about four years old, no egg issues that I've noticed. After doing more research off of what you said it does indeed seem like vitamin e should help. Where do I get this? I do have hydro-hen but that doesn't seem to be what will help most?

Thank you so much for your reply and help!

Edit: Yes our temperature here has been all over the place. It just dropped again and now will be staying cold.

 

[Forkicks]

I'm at Tractor Supply now and am picking up some Layer Boost with Omega 3. Hopefully I'm getting the best one. After reading the back it does seem like the one with the highest amount of vitamin e.

 

[azygous]

Forget chicken vitamins. They are low in strength and cost more. I use people vitamins from Walmart.

 

[Forkicks]

Update: She is now in the "chicken spa" as I call it. Drinking the Layer Boost like no tomorrow. I'll probably do the sugar water tomorrow, just to give her even more of an extra boost. I'll be sure to pick up some people vitamins to have on hand in the future!