Strangest Thing....

[jacque]

The chicks, which are a week old on Thursday, had a cold start....but, I thought that after loosing a few that the rest would be ok....When I went into the growing room tonight, I saw that 3 looked dead....They were on their backs, feet up in the air.....I picked one up and it started chirping, and I must say it did rather scared me for a min., I didn't expect it to move....I put it down again and it's head turned around looking at it's back end, so, I picked it up, thinking that maybe something was out of joint, but, I couldn't find anything visibly wrong.....So, I put it back down again and it did the same thing, then moved onto it's back, feet up in the air again.....I shook my head thinking it was the weirest thing I've seen, and then it was gone....

Is this yet another problem, I'm not aware of? Everytime, I think that I have something worked out it changes again.....

 

[TxChiknRanchers]

First thing that comes to mind is are they cold? Do you have heat for them?

 

[jacque]

They shouldn't be, the temperature is set at 95F and I also have 2 heat lamps should they need it. Most of the time they are away from the lamps...They seem content....eat, sleep and play....they seem to be a lively bunch....

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

What your discribing is Wry neck, and it 's a vitamin deficiency. The stress of cold put them being in B vitamins and often processed feeds don't have enough anyway depending on the date it was made. B vitamins deteriorate rapidly once the grain is ground so it has to be really fresh to be good enough to get them past any shortages.

Get them some Poly-vi-sol drops from the baby department of any drug store and give the ones effected that. You will have to feed and water them till they are able to hold their heads right. Give everyone a vitamin water suplament so you don't get any new cases. Most feed store have poultry vitamins you can add to water.

Good luck. Sometimes you have to cull the ones that have Wry neck bad already by the time you discover it, but mostly you can prevent any new cases.

 

[jacque]

Thankyou, April....I'll zip out and get some right away....I have put some Poly-Tonine A Complex into their water, but maybe not enough....I'll increase it a bit....I put the last batch of birds onto this when I had the 5 or 6 with leg problems....and a couple of them got better, so, I did add this in with this batch as soon as I got them home....The Poly-Tonine A just has B12 and Niacin so the Baby Drops should help.....Again, Thankyou......