4 day old chick, can't move neck -- Update

[Lothiriel]

One of my 4-day old Silkies can't move her neck. She is keeping it down and to her right. She can move it up a little, but doesn't like to. Other than that she seems fine. Could she have been injured while they all took their nap? They like to pile up sometimes. She's sitting with me now, and is peeping and breathing normal. Help please....

 

[WingingIt]

I've never experienced it, but do a search for wry neck threads and see if that sounds the same. If so, I think treatment is just vitamins that are missing and needed. Good luck!

 

[Lothiriel]

I guess I've gotta update...

Last night I separated her and put her in a separate box. She was sleeping most all the time. About 3 AM she started having muscular spasms - flopping all over the box, banging and crashing, but she was still apparently asleep. It was so loud it woke me up (even with my earplugs in) and was scaring the other babies half to death themselves. I helplessly watched her for about a half hour. About every 5 minutes or so she'd have a spasm. At 3:30 she stopped and didn't have another until 4. After that they were more sporadic. I tried getting some more sleep with her still in my room, but it didn't happen. So I took her downstairs and put her in the washroom. There was nothing I could do for her - I don't even know how to humanely kill a chick. When I got up this morning I checked and sure enough she had died.

I read all my chicken illness papers and the only thing I could find that had all the symptoms my Silkie baby had was botulism. But if it was that then all the rest of my babies would have it too, right?

One other possibility for the twisted/wry/paralyzed neck was improper injection of the Marek's vaccine. What do you guys think? Would that cause brain issues and spasms?

One consolation is that TSC said that if any died during the next few days after getting them they'd replace them for me. Hopefully they still have some silkies (or I suppose another special breed...) and also hopefully I can get just one instead of the required 6, since I just got 8 on Thursday.