Silkie Incredibly Thin and Weak- Falls Over Often- Need Advice

[RawrRyu]

Hey. I'm sorry if this is the wrong place, i'm new and joined for my Silkie, Amber.

Basically our family owns a farm and we take in alot of rescue animals. We were given a bunch of silkies about 8 months ago as rescue cases. A couple of months ago I noticed one was getting very weak, until it got to the point she couldn't stand and I took her to the house. I think she got to the state because she couldn't compete with our other chickens so she now lives a spoilt life in a big snake tank with a quail. (And no snake.)

She has been inside for about a month now, but she isn't putting on any weight and is incredibly thin. She is also still very weak and has bad days every now and then where she wont stand. (Even on good days she will often just fall over sideways when being picked up or put down.) She does eat and gets a mix of chicken pellets, corn and mealworms. (mealworms to help try and bulk her out.)
I have also noticed her top beak is overgrowing her bottom beak, would this interfeer with her eating and does this need to be trimmed?

Little notes are:
- She isn't stressed being inside, she often sits and snoozes on my lap. Loves human attention.
- She is abit deformed and has 2 back toes on both of her feet, whether this has something to do with her poor health.
- Her crop holds food fine, the first day she was inside she stuffed herself silly and the crop was lovely and plump.
- She has rather scraggily feathers and doesn't preen.
- She is a purebred ginger Silkie.

If anyone has any advice on helping my Amber it would be greatly appreciated, I do love her to bits.

 

[brahmabreeder]

I would de-worm her in case she has worms. It's always good to get a fecal test done first but that's not always possible. My birds are under weight and the vet told me to free feed them at east until they get their weight back on. She also told me to give them corn for the calories. Meal Worms and cat food have lots of protein so that could be beneficial. Which I see you already do feed the corn and mealworms so keep up with that. I once had a chicken who was extremely thin so I de-wormed her. It was night and day difference. The amount of worms coming out was incredible. They were like 1-3 inches in length.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Just a side note I gave wazine and ivermectin for worming medicine.

 

[TacomaChickNMom]

She may have a vitamin/mineral deficiency. Wouldn't hurt to give some electrolytes in her water. Maybe even find a poultry vet, sometimes they can give them an injection that will help them.

 

[TeamChaos]

Yup, I agree with the 2 stage worming plan- the ivermectin will also kill mites. I feed yogurt and put a little apple cider vinegar in the water too, to make sure that the crop and gut have the right kind of balance to really ensure absorption of nutrients. I know some folks use poly visol without iron as their go to bird vitamin, there are also bird vitamins on the market... I'm currently experimenting with a product called "rooster booster". I've found that putting the food and water dishes on a patio paver or brick for my house-bound chickens gives then a way of cleaning and shaping their beaks. Is her poop normal? Aside from the nutrition aspect, have you checked her feet, legs and chicken "ears" for signs of injury or infection or signs of infestation? Best of luck!

 

[TacomaChickNMom]

Hows your girl doing?

 

[candicemarie]

I'm new to silkies as well, but it is normal for them to have 5 toes
i had a chick not make it last week that was also very week and improved 95% and was dead one morning wishing you better luck than i have been having !!

 

[RawrRyu]

Hey everyone.
Thankyou all for your advice, it was greatly helpful.
Sadly, my Silkie passed away. We suspect she was deformed and couldn't correctly digest food.
All the information was greatly helpful though, thankyou all.
Ryu
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