7 week old chick, head tilting to right, unsteady Pics included

[Oz Chook]

I accidently hit the wrong button, so please ignore previous message, that's what happens when you rush I guess!!

I'm hoping some of you more knowledgable chicken folk out there can help me....

My 7 week old Acacauna chick has developed the following:

* Head is tilting to the right, when she stops and just sits her head twitches at intervals. Like we would if we had been for a swim & had water in our ears.

* When she first gets up to move she quite unsteady. If she runs it's more of a jog.

* Doesn't scratch around in the dirt, just pecks off the top.

* when she walks/jogs it's got a lean to the right.

I've only had her for 1 week. I initially thought she was just a bit more cuddly and perhaps a bit on the lazy side than the other 2 that I got at the same time. But looking back, this has been developing over the week.

When I opened the hen house this morning, everyone else raced out, but she stayed in her box and didn't come out until I brought her out.

She's eating and drinking okay, can't tell you anything about her poops though.

It was quite hot here the lat few days, 36 degrees celcius (about 90 I think in your language!)

She's definately up there on the favourite list, and I hope it's nothing more than that she will just be a bit 'special'.

I hope the following photo's help a bit more than my explanation.

This one is little blurry, but shows how she leans when on the go.

 

[ruth]

Sounds a lot like Ruth when she was that age. She got worse and worse till she was found "dead" in the cage with the others all trampling her. I gave her vitamin E capsules (just cut off the top and let her eat goo that squishes out) and fed her liquid bird vitamins dropped on edge of beak (you can use liquid childrens vitamins) plus lots and lots of protein foods like dry cat food wetted down, cooked egg yolk, shredded cheese. Today Ruth is almost 6 months old and is much smaller than her fellow hatchlings but is thriving, though her head will still tilt to left sometimes and she finally grew a tail recently and it too tilts to left sometimes. But other than an occasional tilt, she's straight and normal the rest of time and she runs around free-ranging with the best of them. My guess is it was partly genetic deformity and/or vitamin deficiency.

 

[dlhunicorn]

I would add Avia Charge 2000 (one of the few complete supplements I know of where all the nutritional and vit elements are in the correct ratio to each other>you can order from McMurray or Strombergs) You can also give POLYVISOL (while waiting on it) three drops in beak once a day for a week...