Chicken weak, wobbly, walking backwards, sitting tail up head down

[Slvraudigrl]

Hi. I have a Salmon faverolles it’s about six months old. I noticed yesterday morning that she had made it down the ramp from the coop but then didn’t seem to have any balance and when I approached or did an awkward backward maneuver. I separated her from the rest and put her in a dog kennel. Initially she seemed interested in anything however after I scrambled some eggs and got an eyedropper to give her water she gobbled it up. She does seem quite weak and reading Lots of blogs trying to Understand what is going on. I took a video of her wobbling around but I think it’s quite interesting.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

You can post the video on YouTube, then copy-paste the link here. please let us see what she's doing

 

[Slvraudigrl]

OK I hope this video works! It shows her off-balance going backwards and flopping around

 

[janiedoe]

Can you answer these questions, please?
1. What type feed are you feeding?
2. Can you post a close up picture of each of her eyes ? Do they look the same? (Pupils, color)
3. Has she had any injuries lately? ( Even a "small" injury such as being pecked on the head by another chicken?)
4. Do you have other chickens, who have unusual symptoms, of any kind?
If you can answer these questions, I'm sure one of our members can help you.

 

[Slvraudigrl]

Video posted above! Here it is again

 

[Slvraudigrl]

Can you answer these questions, please?
1. What type feed are you feeding?
2. Can you post a close up picture of each of her eyes ? Do they look the same? (Pupils, color)
3. Has she had any injuries lately? ( Even a "small" injury such as being pecked on the head by another chicken?)
4. Do you have other chickens, who have unusual symptoms, of any kind?
If you can answer these questions, I'm sure one of our members can help you.

I use the layer feed from Grubbily‘s. It’s really nice and the chickens love it.
I can try to get a picture of her eyes, but they look the same to me and they are quite bright and clear. No signs of infection or odd colors that I can tell.
Also no injuries that I know of. I can’t see anything physically on her that seems odd, other than she’s thin, probably because she can’t eat because she has no balance to get to the feeder. Also it does sort of seems that her breast bone sticks out more to the left and her head goes to the right.
I have eight other chickens, of mixed breeds and they all seem quite healthy. This one is six months old, I have six chickens that are six months old and three chickens that are about a year and a half but as far as I can tell there’s no bullying that goes on.
I made her scrambled eggs yesterday that she happily ate, and I made some probiotic water that I fed her with a syringe. This morning I tried to give her some electrolyte water that she didn’t appreciate. I’m guessing she’s so skinny because she just was unable to eat because of the balance and it took me a few days to figure it out.

 

[azygous]

It appears to be a case of wry neck. It can manifest in walking backward and overall poor coordination. The treatment is vitamin E with egg or a sliver of selenium every day until the symptoms disappear.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I agree, I would try vitamin therapy.
400IU Vitamin E is usually the normal dose and a little selenium, whether a tiny sliver of selenium tablet (not too much) or a bit of egg/tuna for the uptake of E.
Give 1/4 tablet B-Complex as well.

Any chance she ate something moldy, rotten, dead or toxic?

She may have trouble eating on her own if she's that unbalanced. You may need to help stabilize her and hand feed or syringe/tube feed into her.
Make your feed into a paste or to oatmeal consistency, it may be easier for her to eat that way.

 

[Slvraudigrl]

Thank you. It’s been over a week now and I’ve been scrambling her 1 to 2 eggs a day with vitamin E pills that I squeeze into the egg as well as a selenium tablet.
Her neck was really out of sorts and now it seems to be straightening out, unfortunately she still only walks backwards and is still extremely uncoordinated. I have to support her to eat and drink but she has a great appetite. Additionally early on we realized that she was infested with Mites and probably fleas. I found a spray from Agway that we used after giving her a three-step bath that was supposed to help with infestation. Not sure how much it helped but, we have been using the spray and it seems to be killing the clumps of eggs at the base of her feathers at her vent and neck.
I’m wondering how long it will possibly take for her and if she will ever regain normalcy. I briefly took her up to the other chickens and their run today and immediately they pecked at her and were terrible. I had to remove her right away.

 

[azygous]

You only need selenium, just a sliver of a tablet, when you aren't feeding eggs, which have plenty of selenium. Too much selenium can quickly become toxic. A whole tablet is much too much.

Try increasing the E to two capsules a day unless you are already doing that.