A success story against the odds. (don't give up hope)
We have a chicken that had paralysed legs at around 1 month old. It recovered, only to relapse several weeks later. We realised only after the relapse that this was caused by a vit B deficiency, and feared that we were too late (it was several days into the second bout before we got the supplements going).
We tried Berocca (a soluble vitamin B supplement (the chick rather liked it)), a free-range poultry nutrient block that I ground up in my coffee grinder, and later we began mixing raw egg with her feed.
She began to regain strength after about two weeks, but was completely unable to control her legs - despite any and all the chick physio treatments we could think of. Various sources on the net state that the myelin sheath on the nerve thickens and pinches the nerve. these sources also said that the damage is permanent.
We kept feeding her, changing her nappy, and praying. one day, after five weeks, she got the use of one leg back. a day or two later, the second started coming good. She is now a walking miracle. I don't know whether her increase in size has allowed the nerves more space - so they don't get pinched - or whether the nerves have both grown and regenerated as she grew. None of the 'official' descriptions of the condition suggested that this was possible. I can only guess that this is because the researchers simply watched what happened, and did not intervene when chickens became too weak to fend for themselves.
So - don't give up, even when the case seems hopeless.
