Chicken unsteady on feet, collapses and sits a lot

[PoultryPedia]

If she becomes too far gone, don't feel bad if you need to put her down. You have given her a lot of love & tender care and it may be her time to go. I'm sure it has been a poignant experience helping her and I'm sure she has appreciated all you've been doing. I'm very sorry she doesn't seem to be improving.

 

[shetan83]

It took a long, long time for our roo to recover. A couple of weeks at least. And during that time he was really unable to stand. I think he got worse before he got better. But he always seemed alert and bright-eyed. And he had the ability to eat and drink like normal. My philosophy is that as long as a chicken can eat and drink properly, I don't want to give up on it.

 

[staceync]

How did your chicken fare? Did you ever find out what was wrong? One of my hens is exhibiting this same behavior. I'm worried about her! I hope your chicken made it. Thanks, Stacey

 

[Lisa M]

Hi there! Staceync I know you posted a while back but I have also experienced this and I fixed my birds with just a few days of polyvisol (with no iron). How did your bird fare?

 

[staceync]

Hi Lisa, Sadly we lost Whitney Houston to what I believe was Marek's disease.

Eventually she became almost completely paralyzed. Very sad. I am glad your girl recovered. --Stacey

 

[Angie Christine]

I have a baby chick that waddles and then sits T's. Other chicks run around like nothing is wrong. What do I do with this baby? 4 weeks old or so? Seperate her? They are in a large box in my home office until we get the coop built. Help please

 

[zanin]

Angie, how is your chick?

 

[villatoktok]

I have a chick that 'walks' or scooting very unstable. He/she is 2,5 weeks old and smaller than the other 2 Wyandotte. He/she walks like a duck and just collapses after a couple of seconds.
The vet gave the chick a vitamin shot.
I started giving my chick some yoghurt mixed with the food they always get. He/she will get a bit of raw meat in the evening and a multivitamin+cordial silver on the drinking water.
He/she is separated from the rest since I have some bigger brahma chicks walking around.
I didn't see any progression yet this morning actually it has gotten worse.
I hope things will take a turn for this little chick.

 

[PoultryPedia]

@villatoktok
How has your chick done? Let us know how things have been & if you were able to figure out anything more about the problem.
It sounds like you take very careful care of your chicks! I hope your little chick with the problem has gotten better.

 

[M Claire]

Hello everyone and HELP PLEASE!
I am having this problem with a beautiful white Sussex chick and I don't know what to do.
She can stand, but she just doesn't seem to want to. She is nearly two months old, and has always been in perfect health, but just in the past two days, she won't get up and when she does, her toes flex upward slightly (enough to notice it) as she walks. She's eating and has no other symptoms.

Last summer, for the first time since we've been keeping chickens (about three years now), we had this same problem with a RIR chick, at roughly the same age. She's fully grown and has miraculously survived this far, but she has trouble getting up on her feet, staggers when she wants to get somewhere, cannot perch or jump at all, has trouble maintaining her front-back balance when standing, and shows the same sign of flexing her toes upward.

I should mention that both of these chicks came from the only local hatchery close enough for us to drive to (only one company does mail order in France and the shipping is prohibitive), which I am sad to say that we will not be buying from again. They're nice folks, but our survival rate with their chicks has consistently been very poor compared to the ones we've hatched out under broodies at home. Like 20-40% losses. They have grown their business beyond their capacity to manage in the past two years from what I can see and now have fairly bad endemic disease problems.