Please help with a 7 month old Dominecker.

[JaceTx]

I have a Dominecker that has seemed to lose all balance. She just lays on her stomach and flops around. I am pretty sure her legs aren't broken. She seems to be eating and drinking well. I have her isolated for now.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[warhorse]

Other information might be helpful. Is she eating and drinking? Are her eyes bright and is she alert? Is her poop normal? I'm quite new to the aviary triaging, but it sounds similar to what I had seen others identify as botulism. You can search the site here for threads on that and see if there are similarities with your bird.

 

[JaceTx]

Thanks for the help. Other than not being able to stand, everything is normal. The only other thing I can think of is she might of ate some bread with some mold on it.

 

[warhorse]

I believe mold is a source of botulism. I'm not familiar with treatments or prognosis, but good luck.

 

[Suellyn]

Try some initial "supportive care"; Confine her to a small/quiet space (dog crate or something), give her extra heat, make sure she is taking in food and water. Add pedialyte or vitamins to her water. Extra protein/energy food would help her out too (hard boiled eggs, whatever she likes).

That's just the "basic stuff" for an ailing bird, not "specific", but good to do with any injury or illness.

Use the "search" function at the top of this page to look into her specific symptoms, and hopefully others will chime in as well... There are a variety of things that can cause ataxia/loss of balance/paralysis... Including Marek's disease (!) and, yes, botulism.

 

[TXmom]

I know I've read other posts here that are similar to yours. I think they said they cared for their hens like Suellyn described and they recovered in a week or two. Is your hen young (like a year old)? That's what I remember from the other posts...they don't know what caused it, but they did get better.

Good luck!