19 week old Cockerel twisting his neck intermittently. Is this wry neck, seizures, a neurological problem, toxicity, Marek's, or something else?

[azygous]

Do you have a link to this thread? Sounds like something to read to learn from.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rooster-yellow-urates-mystery-solved.1496712/

 

[Lortiz]

I don't doubt that poor nutrition of parents or chicks is responsible for a lot of chick ailments e.g. curled toes; I am surprised to hear that blindness can be caused thus too.

What I find really odd is that wry neck, torticollis, twisted neck, and scoliosis all fail to appear in the DVM A-Z of chicken health conditions http://www.poultrydvm.com/views/health.php# .

I don't think wry neck is well understood at all; we can all believe what we want to because the facts are so opaque. But personally I put more store in a published hefty handbook on the topic of chicken health from c. 25 years ago than I do in a webpage from whenever without references or even a proper full name of its author.

I sometimes have trouble finding info using the PoultryDVM symptom checker so instead I do a search for Poultry DVM and the topic. Here is a link to PoultryDVM info on Wry Neck in chickens. He includes many references.
http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/wry-neck

 

[Painted Calls]

PoultryDVM is not a good source for info. @casportpony knows more about that than I do.

 

[azygous]

Just sitting here in an idle moment and I thought I'd click on that Poultry DVM link on wry neck. It's just this side of useless information because it's incomplete. It would help if it would extrapolate on the vast array of symptoms of torticollis to include imbalance, walking backward, falling over to the side, inability to target food, as well as twisting the head to the side and rear and gazing upward.

It also doesn't explain treatment in a complete manner. If it claims to educate the reader, it could explain what the purpose of vitamin E is, that including a sliver of selenium will increase absorption, and it doesn't specify which B vitamin it recommends, B1, B2, B6, B12 or a B complex and why.

 

[FeatheredFriends&Horses2]

Does his nose look okay and his breathing sound okay? What about feces, do they look normal? This could very well be a vitamin E deficiency, and I would definitely up his intake just in case. Don't go crazy though, while vitamin E is the least likely fat-soluble vitamin to cause toxicity, and chickens can handle a pretty good amount, there is still a minor risk of toxicity. That being said, while vitamin E deficiency can cause this, torticollis can be a symptom of a whole host of things, so if he doesn't seem to be getting better, he's getting worse, or you notice any other symptoms, I'd quarantine him right away and start looking for other causes.

 

[FeatheredFriends&Horses2]

I don't doubt that poor nutrition of parents or chicks is responsible for a lot of chick ailments e.g. curled toes; I am surprised to hear that blindness can be caused thus too.

What I find really odd is that wry neck, torticollis, twisted neck, and scoliosis all fail to appear in the DVM A-Z of chicken health conditions http://www.poultrydvm.com/views/health.php# .

I don't think wry neck is well understood at all; we can all believe what we want to because the facts are so opaque. But personally I put more store in a published hefty handbook on the topic of chicken health from c. 25 years ago than I do in a webpage from whenever without references or even a proper full name of its author.

It doesn't appear in the A-Z list of chicken health conditions because it is a symptom, not a causative agent. It is definitely annoying though that Poultry DVM doesn't include a list of symptoms, although if you go through the symptom checker, you are able to find torticollis and some of the causes.

 

[Folly's place]

Part of feeding a balanced diet is making sure that each bag of feed is actually fresh, by it's mill date. Some vitamins are lost over time in feed, so be careful about that.
And i do think that genetics play a role in this, if it's a marginal vitamin deficiency in one chick out of a group all managed the same way.
This happened here, years ago. One of several dozen (forget how many) chicks in a group, fed the same feed, before I checked mill dates. She was failing, with neurological symptoms, and on PM had brain lesions caused by vitamin E deficiency. The only chick that summer with this problem!
So, if everyone else is fine, try treating that bird, but don't include him or her in your breeding groups!
It's great to save everyone, but that doesn't make them breeders.
Mary

 

[Lortiz]

Just sitting here in an idle moment and I thought I'd click on that Poultry DVM link on wry neck. It's just this side of useless information because it's incomplete. It would help if it would extrapolate on the vast array of symptoms of torticollis to include imbalance, walking backward, falling over to the side, inability to target food, as well as twisting the head to the side and rear and gazing upward.

It also doesn't explain treatment in a complete manner. If it claims to educate the reader, it could explain what the purpose of vitamin E is, that including a sliver of selenium will increase absorption, and it doesn't specify which B vitamin it recommends, B1, B2, B6, B12 or a B complex and why.

Yes, I agree. Many of the write ups have far more information but some are like this or even have less information.

 

[Lortiz]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rooster-yellow-urates-mystery-solved.1496712/

Thank you! I read it and it is very interesting.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rooster-yellow-urates-mystery-solved.1496712/

Just sitting here in an idle moment and I thought I'd click on that Poultry DVM link on wry neck. It's just this side of useless information because it's incomplete. It would help if it would extrapolate on the vast array of symptoms of torticollis to include imbalance, walking backward, falling over to the side, inability to target food, as well as twisting the head to the side and rear and gazing upward.

It also doesn't explain treatment in a complete manner. If it claims to educate the reader, it could explain what the purpose of vitamin E is, that including a sliver of selenium will increase absorption, and it doesn't specify which B vitamin it recommends, B1, B2, B6, B12 or a B complex and why.

Yes, I agree. Many of the writeups contain a lot more useful information but some are like this or have even less information.

 

[Lortiz]

That clarifies it. Wry neck is caused by other things in addition to genetics. Wry neck caused by genetics is very difficult to treat successfully, and I've seen threads where it was not possible to achieve any improvement at all using vitamin E on some chicks hatched with this proclivity. https://meyerhatchery.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017811331-Wry-Neck

This is a good article. Thanks!