3yo araucana - I guess "sour crop" sounds right???

[azygous]

It's your intuition educated by all of your daily interactions with your chickens. This knowledge is stored in your subconscious and your intuition calls up this knowledge in times of stress. It's kind of like the tonsils and appendix - they served humans at one time in evolution, but they aren't used for much in modern times.Now we look at our smart phones to tell us what to do.

I keep hammering away on this forum. Trust your intuition about your chickens. Ignore the chatter in your brain that says you're just being silly. You know more about your chickens than anyone else.

 

[aliris]

Hi azygous - no I don't think the wry neck has been present since forever. I mistyped if I wrote that above. I'm thinking back over the last couple weeks and I did notice it a few days back without paying it any attention. But she has not until very recently had this trouble with posture and the like. This is just very recent, perhaps to 4-5days past.

I gave her a pill at dawn, then checked back in an hour and she appeared not to have moved, hadn't left the coop. I fed her a small amount, which was all she would take, and now I've moved her inside to the newly-vacated chicken hospital. It's warmer there and hopefully less stressful.

How frequently could I give a second does of the vit E? Perhaps in a couple hours with some scrambled egg at that point? She seems to keep nodding off so I thought I'd let her sleep a bit? The vit E is 268mg (400 IU). It's fat soluble so - I don't know if that's a thing with chickens as it is for humans but... I'm thinking maybe not two in one day? I thought I remembered you saying elsewhere perhaps it would be fine though so- that's my question: administer a second vit E pill today or not. tia!

 

[azygous]

That is a low concentration of E. You could give two more doses today and she'd be fine. Vitamin E is fat soluble so it will accumulate in fat tissue, but it would require several weeks of it. She won't need it that long.

She may be getting weak from hunger. Sleepiness is often not sleepiness when it's during the daytime. Offer her egg and a little sugar in her water. Encourage her to drink by dipping her beak.

Starvation is the most immediate concern with wry neck. It can quickly render a chicken too weak to eat. You need to keep that from happening.

 

[aliris]

That is a low concentration of E. You could give two more doses today and she'd be fine. Vitamin E is fat soluble so it will accumulate in fat tissue, but it would require several weeks of it. She won't need it that long.

She may be getting weak from hunger. Sleepiness is often not sleepiness when it's during the daytime. Offer her egg and a little sugar in her water. Encourage her to drink by dipping her beak.

Starvation is the most immediate concern with wry neck. It can quickly render a chicken too weak to eat. You need to keep that from happening.

OK, I got one more pill down and a half scrambled egg + couple dozen peas + some layer feed. I stuffed the pill down and tried to do that with the egg and then realized it's easier and probably safer to get it in her mouth and encourage her to tongue it down. Took a while but it's all in there. Gonna ive her a half hour to recover then set her out with the others hoping they'll encourage her eating. Now I'm paranoid when i see one of them turning to the right...

What's a day's food dosage look like? I can feel the egg-pea-feed in the crop and she looks much more alert. Fighting with dh who's reflecting his own feelings that when he's sick he wants to be left alone to sleep, but this is more like a newborn - thank you for the tutelage. If they sleep too long they slip below an energy-threshold needed to forage I'm guessing. Thank you. I'll give a third pill later today.

I was able to drizzle a little water in but not much. She won't take it herself. But maybe with more energy....

 

[aliris]

Writing to report quite a bit of success. Patient is, dunno, 30% better? Or ore. Not sure how to quess at a quantity. She's currently in the yard with her compatriots and actually trying to scratch like they do. It's humerous, she scratches and falls forward. But she's - slowly - game to keep trying. I think it's good to encourage, unless it isn't of course.

Attached are two pictures of her poop, one from this morning, approx 10am, one from this afternoon, around 4pm.

She's had so far 3 400IU vit E pills and 2/3 scrambled egg+buncha peas and buncha layer feed mixed in. Plus probably at least a third cup of electrolyte water that wasn't sweet and she just loved. She kept asking for more, then I switched to water and eventually stopped spooning it into her open beak bc I was afraid it was just too much.... Things are on the right trend!! TY!

The photos show, I think, the peas and maybe the vit E capsule? Too uch white stuff, probably. But better than her former friend....

 

[azygous]

The poop isn't too far from normal. I wouldn't be concerned about it.

That's good news she's perky and eating and drinking. Keep the E up tomorrow as you did today.