Please HELP !! Bantam Easter Egger head is twisted back and to one side - Is this Crookneck ???

[Haunted55]

The stuff on the eye was pus. birds don't have it the same as we do, theirs is more cottage cheesy like. This was most likely caused by a respiratory disease, which one, I don't know without going through all of the symptoms.

It is possible that you transferred some type of illness to this bird, but I still say it was vitamin related. Either from bad feed or some type of a toxin playing havoc with the digestive system. I may be totally off the wall but from symptoms and such..... I would also say that these birds you got from the breeder are not the healthiest stock you could have taken in. I myself will not buy from a private person unless I have done my homework very well. Too many chances for problems this way. Many people out there insist that chickens get colds like we do. They think nothing of selling these birds or their young and never disclose the information to the buyer. Chickens don't get colds, they get diseases that do not go away and can be passed through the eggs to their young. These hatchlings may never show signs or symptoms of the disease but they can shed the virus they carry from their parent stock. Now if they were from a local breeder, chances are, they weren't vaccinated for Marek's either and in fact may have been exposed to it as chicks if it were anywhere in the breeder's flock. Could this have been Marek's, knowing they came from a breeder instead of a hatchery, yes it could have been. At this point, it really doesn't matter too much, except to use it as a warning to watch your remaining birds for any signs of illness.

The only Bantams I have are Showgirls, so I can't speak for the other varieties. I would say that the problems you are going through are, as said above, because of the breeding stock used. Some breeders are not careful of the lines of progression with their breeding. While chickens don't have a lot of issues with indiscriminate breeding practises at first, eventually you have to bring in stock from outside your flock. You can't keep breeding father- daughter, mother-son forever. Then there are brother-sister issues as well. If the gene pool isn't refreshed you will have weak and sickly stock that nothing but new blood is going to fix. If I had to guess, this is what happened to you and I truly am sorry you had to learn this the hard way.

 

[abbaschickens]

I have had this and been very successful with adding selenium to the birds diet. Yesterday I was at the feed store and there is a food additive for horses that was vitamin E and selenium. It would be easy to sprinkle on the chicken food. Otherwise u can crush it up the pill and put in the water. Shortly after drinking the water with the selenium the be ok would uncurve. My chicken is 6 months post wry neck and she lays daily and is perfectly fine. An added bonus is that she was handled so much she is very friendly.

I also did some neck massage and straightening physical therapy when she was struggling through this condition.

Good luck k.

 

[Fluffy Ducky]

Hi again, and thank you again for your reply. Your knowledge and advice is much appreciated.

I think you are right, because looking back to when we got them they were not in the best condition - they had a lot of feathers missing, but we thought they may have been molting, or had been picked on and pecked by others and felt sorry for them and thought we could give them a better life. However, we did not have much experience with chickens, and we were facinated by the fact that they would lay green eggs. Their feathers grew back reasonably quickly and they started laying green eggs - we thought it was great.

It was probably almost a year before the chicken in the other post ("serious trouble with hens eye") became really sick and almost died, but we separated it and nursed it back to health. Not long after it became clucky, we rectified that. Then a little while later it became sick again - but not too bad. Then clucky. Then a bit sick again. Then clucky. So it hardly layed at all. It mainly had the eye problem, (stuck shut and pusy) and was sneezing and wheezing. All the time it was sick, our other chickens were unaffected. The last time it was sick just recently was almost as bad as the first time (although it was not quite on deaths door). I took it to the vet, thinking I had to have it put down, but since it was a pet, got antibiotics for it hoping it would fix the problem. The vet said it had CRD with mycoplasma and gave it an injection (we had to do 2 more at home over the next few days) It got better except for the eye problem. It was swollen with pus and all the bathing in the world was not helping. A friend came over and we physically removed most of it, but it was left with a white film over the eye that seemed to be stuck there and would not budge (even with massage). Then it became like the pictures in the post. I tried aloe vera for a little while, and one night the majority of it just fell off overnight. However the eye that is left there is unrecognisable, so I presume it is blind in that eye.

Just when we thought things were looking up a bit, our bantam easter egger (which had not been affected so far) started with this twisting neck and falling over. So I joined up to byc and posted hoping for help but unfortunately it deteriorated rapidly and died after only 2-3 days. We had started the vitamins and was keeping it comfortable in a box, but on the 3rd or 4th morning it had passed away overnight.

We are still really sad, I thought they were unrelated problems. But I wonder now if they were??? What are your thoughts....

We have thought about culling this chicken and cutting our losses (it is a pet but it has been a lot of had work keeping it well and alive), but we can't bring ourselves to do it...

***Can you please also tell me if you think it is safe to eat the eggs from our 2 Isa Browns which seem to be unaffected ???? Or whether you think that our remaining Easter Egger (and originally sick chicken) is "chronically" contagious and may pass on something to the others without them seeming affected???

Thank you so much for your help.

I look forward to your reply as this is a bit of a worry....

 

[chkn]

So I'm going with the wry neck or stargazer diagnoses. You need to get supplements in her that include B vitamins (as I recall). Some people used to recommend here liquid baby vitamins, Poly Vi Sol. Just make sure it's the one WITHOUT the iron. You might have to just hold her head level and squirt just a little bit in at a time. You can pick it up anywhere almost.

 

[Haunted55]

The eggs are safe as long as they are not receiving antibiotics and yes I believe your birds are chronically sick and contagious. Respiratory issues, like MG are forever once they are there in the flock and leave your birds weakened so they are susceptible to anything that comes their way. If one has it, they all do, symptomatic or not. You need to keep a closed flock now and practise good biosecurity everyday. Trust me, I'm a soft touch as well....I have Marek's in my flock and instead of culling all and starting over, I refused to do so and I pay the price everyday, with special needs birds. Was it the smart thing to do? Lol, I can't answer that....somedays I just want to beat my head against a wall and wonder how I could have been so stupid to think I could do this. You never know when one [or two or three] is going to turn up sick and if they'll 'recover' this time. Other days, when one of these birds comes up to you for a luv and a pat....yeah.

I will tell you that the culling or dying doesn't stop if you have special needs birds. They are sick, whether they are showing symptoms or not. Basically a bomb that can go off anytime, as you have already found out. I will tell you the smart thing to do. Cull the ones you have, clean out their coop with a really good cleaner like activated Oxine, wait a month and start over. Order your birds from a reputable hatchery and have them vaccinated with all 3 kinds of Marek's vaccine. When you get them, put them on a good medicated chick starter and leave them on it until they have been on the ground [out of the brooder] for a few weeks, so that they can build resistance to the coccidia in your ground. This is the best recipe to follow for healthy chicks that will give you the least amount of problems and the most eggs. If you choose the other way and decide to keep the birds you have to consider yourself 'sick' with MG and anything else they might have. You can carry these diseases on your clothing, car, whatever and you are a risk to anyone's birds you may come in contact with. Even if you never see these birds, just going to the feed store, you could be 'dropping' the virus for someone else to pick up and take home to their animals.

I know this doesn't leave you with a "warm and fuzzy" feeling inside. I wish I had those kinds of answers for you, but unfortunately, they just don't exist in this situation. If you do plan on keeping the birds you have, you will need to do some research on MG and understand that it is passed through the egg. This means that you can't sell birds or eggs for hatching. You'd be just like the breeder your birds came from if you did. The eggs are fine to eat, but not for hatching for anyone else's flock.

 

[Fluffy Ducky]

Thanks for your replies. Will keep an eye on our other remaining 3 chickens for any further signs of illness.

I just started to panic when I thought even though our Isa Browns are not displaying any symptoms maybe they could still pass something on to us because we are in close contact with them or through eating their eggs. And we have spent so much time with our half blind CRD Easter Egger with multiple problems that could we catch something from her !?!? I will definitely not be eating any green eggs any more - they wouldn't be safe would they ? (Not that I really expect her to ever lay again.)

We do not intend selling our chickens or breeding them - they are just 'pets with benefits'.

If we feel our other chronically sick chicken needs to be put to rest, do you know a humane way for us to "do the deed" ?

I appreciate your information and comments. Feel free to continue to comment if you have something more to say or add to all this. All comments and feedback really welcome.

Thanks again.

 

[Haunted55]

http://www.idph.state.il.us/health/infect/Poultry.htm

After the antibiotics are finished, you can certainly eat your green eggs with ham...lol..or any other way you'd like them. Practise good biosecurity at all times and you'll have nothing to worry about.