6mth old hen started with droopy wing and now will not get up

[yayachicken]

I am new here, but have read and been helped by so many threads of great advice. Please help!
My 6mth old hen started out 21/2 weeks ago with a a droopy wing. she walked around for a week like that and then fell on her back and couldn't right herself. She was lethargic and would not raise her head. I thought for sure she was dead but saw her blink when I went to pick her up. I righted her and she layed over. I thought for sure she would be dead the next morning. Next morning her head was lifted but she had not moved from the same spot on the coop floor. Gave her food (yogurt, scrambled egg which she gobbled!) and water and isolated her. She lifted her head the next day and seemed very perky and eats and drinks very well, but her legs and body seem lifeless, although I know she uses her legs because she moves them and has pushed herself back to another spot about 1/2 foot away. She has been this way for a week and two days now. What the heck is wrong????? I keep thinking she is just healing a hurt wing, but she just lays there like she is fine, but her feet are not under her. Any ideas? Anyone? Thanks so much.

 

[Erica]

Hi yayachicken,

I'm not sure what could be wrong, but the first thing to check is that she's getting the right nutrition.

If she's on a fully formulated diet then I would be worrying about a disease of some sort. Unfortunately the first one that springs to mind is Marek's (which you can google or look up here), but there are other less dire possibilities like one called 'epidemic tremors' (also look it up to see if your bird fits).

Other than that, I suppose toxins (whether poison or botulism from contaminated food) might be a cause.

Sorry I can't really help, but these might give you some ideas for where to start with working out what's wrong.

best of luck,
Erica

 

[ReikiStar]

Do a search of Mareks on the forum. I'm pretty sure the paralysis you're witnessing is from her contracting Mareks. Did she experience any kind of stress lately? Birds usually contract Mareks after an extreme stress like a new bird is brought in and gets mercilessly picked on or a new bird was brought in who is a carrier of Mareks or there was some sort of attack on the flock....even changing feeds is a type of "stress". Also, a lot of people think because their bird doesn't have the "classic" split legs that it isn't Mareks. That's one symptom that isn't all that common. The droopy wing and then the gradual inability to walk leading to difficulty in feeding themselves...those are more common signs of Mareks. I'm really very sorry. The signs are so typical that I can't imagine it's anything else. If it were just her wing, or just one leg, I'd think she had an accident and was simply injured. Mareks exists in the environment, so when they are very stressed, their immune system weakens and the virus finds an in. There is also a lot on the forum about whether its worth vaccinating birds, that might be something you want to look into as well.

I am truly sorry and I would love to be wrong.

 

[yayachicken]

thanks to all of you who replied. I took some pictures this morning and post them here. She has been sitting like this for almost three weeks now. I hope the pictures help someone identify something! I'm feeding her yogurt and her regular feed and sometimes a scrambled egg, (which seems really wrong, but I read it is good for their energy and protein). I don't know what else to do.

 

[yayachicken]

I've also just started giving her Bcomplex this morning with a scrambled egg.