Cockerel can’t raise his head

[Wyorp Rock]

His wry neck has not changed. He stands totally up and his head is laying on the ground. He does lift it for short periods of time when we take him out of the cage to encourage him to walk a bit and exercise his legs. But it’s only as high as parallel to the floor and for a very short time. We’re keeping up with the food supplement and E, B complex, and raw eggs for selenium.

He’s laying down most of the time with his head flat on the ground.

I'm glad you were able to find the wood chip in the eye and remove it.
I'd try flushing the eye with saline, then open it up wide, see if there's anything else in there.

He's laying down with his head flat on the ground/floor? But he can still lift the head some when he stands.

Any chance he ate something rotten or moldy? Something toxic, oil spill or anything like that?
Does his eyes react when you have your fingers round the eyes/face? I assume so, since it seems like he can see.

Photos of how he lays with his head flat out if you have any.
I wonder if it's worth giving him a flush for toxins - charcoal flush? Carol (@azygous ) thoughts on this? Botulism keeps coming to mind, but not everything fits. The eye may have been coincidental since they found a wood chip lodged in it, this would have cause swelling and/or infection in the eye, we've seen that before here.

 

[karenls50]

Thanks for your suggestions. We’ve flushed the eye and tried to look. We see nothing. He’s still very strong and fights us when we try to look in his eye. It’s watery inside there but no more pus.

I doubt he ate anything moldy. The coup has been used for many of our chickens. But it’s been empty for nine months. His two hens are in the same coup, ate the same food and water and they are fine.

He sees just fine out of the other eye. We had him pecking food from my hand this morning. But he gets exhausted and just lays his head down again.

I’ll try to get a picture of him standing with his head on the ground. I posted a couple above.

 

[karenls50]

I'm glad you were able to find the wood chip in the eye and remove it.
I'd try flushing the eye with saline, then open it up wide, see if there's anything else in there.

He's laying down with his head flat on the ground/floor? But he can still lift the head some when he stands.

Any chance he ate something rotten or moldy? Something toxic, oil spill or anything like that?
Does his eyes react when you have your fingers round the eyes/face? I assume so, since it seems like he can see.

Photos of how he lays with his head flat out if you have any.
I wonder if it's worth giving him a flush for toxins - charcoal flush? Carol (@azygous ) thoughts on this? Botulism keeps coming to mind, but not everything fits. The eye may have been coincidental since they found a wood chip lodged in it, this would have cause swelling and/or infection in the eye, we've seen that before here.

We’ll. We’re somewhat encouraged today. After syringe feeding him his soaked feed mixed with vitamin E selenium, and his emerIC, we put him in his basement pen. He walked over to the feed and started eating it. He must have pecked and swallowed for ten minutes. We put water under his beak but he wasn’t interested in the water. I brought down a juicy pear cut up and he gobbled it down. I figured there’s more than one way to get liquids in him. We’ll try the water again later. We did syringe water first thing this morning.

He’s able to stand now and balance. When he tucks his head under, he looses balance and does a complete summersault. He rights himself and stand right up. This morning he only did it once.

His infected eye has no more swelling and he opens and closes it but I can’t see a pupil. I hope he’s not blind. How long should we keep putting the antibiotic drops in?

I’m worried about his gut microbes with all the antibiotics we’re giving him. I’m fermenting a bit of his food and will give him a small bit of that tomorrow to try to rebuild his gut flora.

Here are a few shots of him standing and chowing grain down. The other is his infected eye. The swelling is way down, the pus is gone. His lids open and close. However he doesn’t seem to be able to see out of it yet. He turns his good eye to look at things. We’re praying the sight comes back.

So that’s where we are today. He’s able to stand and walk. He even lifted one leg and stretched it backward today without falling over. Amazing. We have some hope but continue on with our process.

Can we stop syringe feeding him if he can stand and eat? Does he still need the super nutritious (and expensive) supplement we got from the avian vet? It needs to be reconstituted and syringe or tube fed.

Thanks for sharing all your wisdom.

 

[karenls50]

PS. the crud on his face is from us syringe feeding him. He shakes his head and it flies everywhere. We try to clean him up afterward but it’s sticky goo.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm glad to hear he's improving some!

I'd definitely continue with the Vitamin E. Take care not to give a lot of Selenium, usually there's enough in eggs or tuna to help with the uptake of E. If you haven't done so, I'd also start giving him 1/4 tablet B-Complex, the B Vitamins are helpful and B1 also helps with E.

Are you out of the super expensive stuff from the vet? If so, then I'd see how he does without it, you can always introduce it back if he stops improving. If you still have some, then I'd give it for a couple of more days to work him through this. Often we tend to stop things too early when we see some improvement, but I do agree if it's $$$ try it without it, some things are crazy prices and you may find they don't really need it.

As for putting the drops/ointment in the eye, I'd also continue that for a few more days. He still has some swelling. I do hope they eye is not blind, time will tell on that. Getting foreign material in the eye can cause infection, so you want to make sure that's knocked out.

Overall, I think you are doing very well! If he's able to eat and drink on his own, then encourage that behavior. Tube or syringe feeding is for a short period of time to get a bird through crisis until they are able to start doing for themselves. I think he's at that stage now. Again, if he starts failing or stops eating/drinking you can resume the tube/syringe feeding if necessary.

 

[karenls50]

To azygous and wyorprock and all the others you were concerned and helped so far.
I agree with you totally. We are going to stop the syringe feeding and try to add the supplement to a little dampened mash. The supplement has selenium in it along with the Bs. I’m still giving him extra E but think the supplement has enough selenium and B complex.

I just checked him and he’s eaten over 1/4 cup of feed since this morning. I don’t know how much feed an 8-10 lb Marans cockerel eats a day but I’m assuming a growing eight month old will eat at least four ounces or 1/4 lb a day. Does that seem right? Ihaven’t seen him drink but his water is cloudy with chunks of feed in the bottom.

We’ll continue with the antibiotic pills and the antibiotic drops for several more days.
It’s 60 degrees in Ohio today. We’re thinking of taking him outside in the grass for a moment of normalcy. Maybe he’ll eat some clover and pick a bit.

We’re not out of the woods because he still drops and tucks his head when he’s tired and flips completely over. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. But it is becoming further apart.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated. Love to you all! (We might be getting our Christmas miracle)

 

[azygous]

One-half to one cup per day.

 

[karenls50]

One-half to one cup per day.

Ok. He’s eaten almost that much today so that’s good.

We took him outside and put him outside of the run where his hens are. They came up to the fence and seemed so happy to see each other. A lot of happy clucking going round! They tried to get to each other. He only fell once. I think he’s front heavy and when he put his head down he just toppled over. It will take time but the rest of the time outdoors he seemed almost normal. Head held fairly high.

 

[karenls50]

First time I’ve seen him hold his tail up in a week. Females will do that to them.

 

[WoDia]

Oops. Posted the wrong pictures. How do I delete them?

Hit edit on the bottom of your posts. Then hit delete.