Adult chicken ataxic

[Myrkk]

We have a just over a year old Plymouth Rock. She has always run a little funny since we got her as a puller, limping to one side.
Over the last 4wks, she lost some neck feathers, started with a head twitch and yesterday I noticed she had trouble balancing and kept falling to the right as that leg wasn’t working correctly. We then saw her running around the garden looking ok. Today she bent to pick up piece of food and fell to the right again. When she’s standing she is obviously working hard to keep balanced and you could see one toe lifting as she tried to keep balanced. She’s eating, laying is difficult to decide as our chickens and ducks have all decided to start laying wherever they fancy given the hot weather and we’re having to hunt the eggs.
So far we’ve

She was wormed around 6wks ago as part of the flock routine.
She’s on daily vitamins in her water
Smallholders free range GM organic layers pellets
Cracked corn as a treat
Corn on the cob every few days as a treat
They have a tendency to eat the duck food but there’s nothing in that contra-indicated for chickens
Ducks get niacin tabs or nutritional yeast every few days, chickens may get some of that.
They are locked away for part of the day and then let out in the afternoon to free range in the garden.
She’s been treated for mites and lice.
None of the other birds seem to have an issue.

Took her to the vets two weeks ago for a check up. They did a feather pluck and found nothing. Not specialists but they think possibly neurological. I’ve found a local avian vet and intend to take her there next Wed if I can get an appt.

Only think I can think of (popped into my head when typing this), is could the coop spray have caused an issue? None of the other birds seem to have an issue though.

Suggestions anyone?

 

[Debbie292d]

Not specialists but they think possibly neurological.

When you mentioned head twitches, that was my first thought.

I have silkies and every so often I'll get one that's gets the head twitches. They're on Kalmbach's Flockmaker crumbles fortified with vitamins and minerals we put in for boosting vitamins and immunities. All chicks, chickens, and ducks are on that, yet, I'll still get a head twitcher.

The treatment I've used is for a chick, just part of an E and a little scrambled eggs. For the adult, a whole E and a little scrambled eggs. The scrambled eggs provide selenium in the amount they need to absorb the E. I do this once a day for about two weeks and see improvement. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it doesn't, but is better. I keep going for those that don't stop with the symptoms. I have a 3-year-old hen that still does it, and she's gone through a bottle of E in her lifetime.