I’ve got a hen with similar symptoms, notably the walking back wards and the head craning.
I made a post about her here;
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hen-with-suspected-neurological-damage.1282195/
I haven’t finished the course of treatment I’ve chosen. The course is from one of the links and revolves around high Vitamin E dosages.
Apart from these occasional ‘fits’ this hen is otherwise fine. In fact she’s better than fine; strong attitude, eats well, sat, hatched, defended and now thumps her slightly unruly cockerel son.
I have an advantage possibly in having been there when her mother hatched her. The conditions a chick hatches in can have a profound impact on their later health and well being. Reading some of the ‘I fiddle with hatching clutches all day’ it makes one wonder how so many chicks make just a few years old.
This hens mother was six years old when she decided to sit and hatch a clutch of eggs. As hens get older they tend to lay thinner shelled eggs and in the wrong sort of nest box, usually hard flat bottom where they are unable to make a hollow in which they can sit above the eggs and control the eggs orientation, these thinner shelled eggs get easily broken.
In the last three days of the hatching, the mum broke one of the eggs. This left the mums underside sticky and of course, the unhatched eggs tended to stick to her underside. The eggs need to be in a particular position in order for the chick to pip and zip with their heads facing upwards. I believe what happened with this chick is she was stuck to the underside of her mother when she hatched and hadn’t been in the correct position from the time her mother broke an egg.
Basically this chick suffered a birth trauma and I believe sustained some neurological damage.
The treatment I’ve been giving her for the last few weeks hasn’t made the slightest difference apart from her believing she’s entitled to treats.
She still walks backwards and weaves her head around from time to time; none of the other chickens seem to find anything strange in this behavior and after a ‘fit’ she carries on as normal.
Your hen may have well have one of the many complaints mentioned above. If it’s Mareks, you wont know until she dies and the rest of your flock have already been exposed. Much the same can be said for any other infectious disease.
My attitude with this hen now is I’ll let her get on with her life in as normal fashion as possible.
As a general point, I’ve come to believe that many of the health complaints I’ve read on this and other forums are the result of poor hatching conditions.
I made a post about her here;
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hen-with-suspected-neurological-damage.1282195/
I haven’t finished the course of treatment I’ve chosen. The course is from one of the links and revolves around high Vitamin E dosages.
Apart from these occasional ‘fits’ this hen is otherwise fine. In fact she’s better than fine; strong attitude, eats well, sat, hatched, defended and now thumps her slightly unruly cockerel son.
I have an advantage possibly in having been there when her mother hatched her. The conditions a chick hatches in can have a profound impact on their later health and well being. Reading some of the ‘I fiddle with hatching clutches all day’ it makes one wonder how so many chicks make just a few years old.
This hens mother was six years old when she decided to sit and hatch a clutch of eggs. As hens get older they tend to lay thinner shelled eggs and in the wrong sort of nest box, usually hard flat bottom where they are unable to make a hollow in which they can sit above the eggs and control the eggs orientation, these thinner shelled eggs get easily broken.
In the last three days of the hatching, the mum broke one of the eggs. This left the mums underside sticky and of course, the unhatched eggs tended to stick to her underside. The eggs need to be in a particular position in order for the chick to pip and zip with their heads facing upwards. I believe what happened with this chick is she was stuck to the underside of her mother when she hatched and hadn’t been in the correct position from the time her mother broke an egg.
Basically this chick suffered a birth trauma and I believe sustained some neurological damage.
The treatment I’ve been giving her for the last few weeks hasn’t made the slightest difference apart from her believing she’s entitled to treats.
She still walks backwards and weaves her head around from time to time; none of the other chickens seem to find anything strange in this behavior and after a ‘fit’ she carries on as normal.
Your hen may have well have one of the many complaints mentioned above. If it’s Mareks, you wont know until she dies and the rest of your flock have already been exposed. Much the same can be said for any other infectious disease.
My attitude with this hen now is I’ll let her get on with her life in as normal fashion as possible.
As a general point, I’ve come to believe that many of the health complaints I’ve read on this and other forums are the result of poor hatching conditions.
