2 Silkie Chicks with twisted neck in 12hr period

augustmomx2

Songster
11 Years
Aug 31, 2008
696
2
151
Central Indiana
I have 26 4.5 wk old chicks, 5 of them are silkies. All are hatchery birds and have been doing fine. I found one last night cheeping by herself outside, cuz her neck was so severely twisted she couldn't see where to go
sad.png
I have isolated her. Then this morning, I found another one "fighting" the twisting of her neck, a lot of shaking. I have read a few things about injury (on this board of course), thinking that is what happened to the first one. But now that the other is showing symptoms, I'm not sure if its genetic or maybe a vitamin deficiency? I just found it odd that both are silkies
hu.gif
Any advice, suggestions or info will be greatly appreciated. Thank you
smile.png



1) What type of bird , age and weight.
Silkie, 4.5wks, unknown weight
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
1-twisted neck, so severe looks up with one eye and walks backwards 2-shaking head, you can tell she is fighting her head from turning
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
Less than 12 hrs
4) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
No
5) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
Injury? In outside brooder with standard chicks
6) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
No, I have been dipping #1's beak in water, #2 is still able to eat and drink fine
7) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
normal
8) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
isolation of #1
9 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
I will treat myself
10) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
11) Describe the housing/bedding in use
Outside brooder, w/pine chips and access to the outside small run w/dirt and mulch

Forgot to mention...they were all vacc against maerks
 
Last edited:
I never brood my silkies with standard chicks if I can at all help it. Silkies have a soft spot on their skulls just like a newborn baby. The ones with the vaulted skulls are even more vulnerable. Even one peck to that can cause neurological damage or death. I made the mistake of keeping a standard cochin chick in with some of my silkies this year. They made it to 4 months of age before he started killing them off one by one. He's kicked outside to fend for himself now. I'm sure there are some people that have sucessfully raised silkies with other breeds, I'm just not one of them.
 
As far as a fix, euthanasia is about the quickest and humane solution for them. You can try vitamin E, selenium, and even prednisone treatments. They MAY pull out of it temporarily but will exhibit these same symptoms every time they get stressed in any way...overcrowding, heat, travel, etc. Usually they end up starving to death because they can't get their head down to peck at food or to drink.
 
I have a blue silkie, about three-weeks-old, who started to show signs about two-weeks-ago.

After some research online I immediatly switched to organic chic starter, seperated "Hendrix", the inflicted chic, from the other chics, and started giving Hendrix...

1) a tiny crushed piece of human B vitamin,
2) about half of a 400 IUD vitamin E gel cap, and
3) mixed it with a couple drops of selenium to help the absorbtion of vitamin E

...each day.

I often mixed it with some mulit-grain baby cereal, soymilk, and egg yolk for nutrition supplimentation.

I was starting to get worried about Hendrix after a week, because his head was always tucked....

But this week...especially today, Hendrix seems almost normal. I am so happy!

Everytime I have checked on him today his head has been up.

I will probably continue treatment for another week.

Good Luck with your chic! Hang in there!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom