Does Silkie have Wry neck?

[brumby90]

Done a lot of online searching but cannot find another chicken with exact same symptoms.
Have a silkie. She is approx 18 months old.
Went mostly blind (not sure why -disease?) around a year ago but she could find her way to food, water and nest.
About 4 weeks ago her neck suddenly twisted like it had wry neck. A male did peck at head a couple of times (not sure if that caused it) so I removed her from others.
Been giving her the usual Vit E with selenium daily but she does not seem to improve greatly after 3 weeks.
She actually can feed herself and drink etc. She no longer has her neck twist down under her body as she did the first couple of days but she usually stands with it slightly sideways.
If you pick her up she starts twisting like she is having a fit or such. It seems the sudden movements cause it. Soon as she is back on the ground she is fine.
Is this typical wry neck behaviour?
Curious if anyone has come across these symptoms before.

 

[4 Georgia Hens]

Picture please!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi @brumby90 Welcome To BYC

Can you post some photos or a video of her? (do you have any photos of her eyes?)

Your description sounds like Wry Neck. Keep in mind that Wry Neck is a neurological symptom of certain conditions and diseases like Marek's, head injury/trauma and vitamin/nutritional deficiencies. Since she went blind, she may have Marek's, but it's hard to know without testing. If she was pecked in the head, this could have been stressful enough for symptoms to present or she may be suffering from injury.

The only thing I can suggest to do is offer her supportive care unless she can be seen by a vet. See that she is drinking well. Give 400IU of Vitamin E daily along with 1/4tab of human B-Complex (no iron). Selenium helps with the uptake of Vit.E, so you can find that in egg, tuna or crushed nuts.

Let us know how she's doing.

 

[brumby90]

Ill get a photo/video of eyes shortly. They are slightly hazy due to being nearly blind. She definitely can still see though.
Not sure she has Mareks because she should be dead after such a long time with sight issues.
She eats and drinks everything. No loss of appetite at all.
I give her 500iu of Vit e and 1/3 of selenium tablets (100) three times a day in her food.
She is a bit unsteady on her legs (probably due to sight) and does not move around much. She has been like that since sight went.
The 'wry neck' did start within 48 hours of being pecked by young rooster but could be a coincidence.
I'm guessing 3 weeks is long enough if there was going to be any improvement and she may just have to live with the 'wry neck' problem.

 

[Eggcessive]

Wyorp Rock has given good advice on treatment. The twisted neck can be a sign of Mareks, but it can occur on it’s own from other causes. Pictures of the eyes can really be helpful.

You can Google some pictures of ocular Mareks disease, and Cornell has some good ones that show the various changes in the eyes. There can be a loss of color in the iris to grey, an irregular shaped pupil, or a pinpoint or dilated pupil. Since there are 4 different types of Mareks, a chicken can have one or more types of symptoms. The 4 types are nerve tumors (which can cause the paralysis,) the skin type, the internal organ type, and the ocular or eye type.

 

[brumby90]

She does not really display any symptoms of Mareks other than impaired vision but as mentioned she has had that for a year and not gone totally blind. Naturally when an animal loses some vision there is a slight fogging (but no 'melting') of eye.
I guess the length of time makes me think it is not that along with the fact she has never lost appetite etc.
She was perfectly fine until pecked by rooster.
The neck and some loss of balance seems to suggest wry neck from what am reading.
Cant really get a clear pic of her eyes as they are very dark. There is no 'melting' of the pupil or anything. It looks normal.
Have uploaded some video of her.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MJDHAWDgWIY7DovWWDobVsEMT0ntoWaq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1idyo-sTBhABWCUesSjiWxwhdiYmLf-Yy/view?usp=sharing

 

[rjohns39]

Hi and welcome to BYC We're so happy you've joined us I wish it were under better circumstances but you've got the right folks helping you.

 

[MageofMist]

Looks like it could be wry neck to me, or a neurological issue. I myself haven't had any wry neck cases so far though. But rabbit water bottles would help her drink better. It is very easy to train to use one, just give the bottle a light squeeze so she sees water drip out and let the hen peck at it until she figures out how to drink properly from it, that way she won't struggle bending down and lifting back up when drinking from a bowl.

My healthy silkies actually prefer the bottle over the bowl, even after me not using it with them for almost an entire year.

Silkies and other crested breeds have weaker skulls that are easier to damage, which could also be the case since you said she was pecked on the head by the roo a couple of times.

 

[brumby90]

SO a week later and she has become worse. Still the problem with neck but can barely stand anymore (due to tiredness and balance issue).
Have to feed and give her water as she cant do it herself.
Guessing it must be Mareks or something due to it being a good 3 weeks or more with the problem.
Can they recover from mareks or do they usually die?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

SO a week later and she has become worse. Still the problem with neck but can barely stand anymore (due to tiredness and balance issue).
Have to feed and give her water as she cant do it herself.
Guessing it must be Mareks or something due to it being a good 3 weeks or more with the problem.
Can they recover from mareks or do they usually die?

I'm sorry to hear she is declining

With your description of symptoms (wry neck , balance issues, eye problems, going off feed) it likely is Marek's. @rebrascora has more experience dealing with Marek's, but I believe the general consensus is, that once they are not able to eat/drink on their own, then the disease is advanced and chances of recovery is slim.

You can continue with supportive care, hand/tube feeding and trying to see if she will make a marked improvement, but if she is wasting (losing weight), struggling or seems to be in pain, then it's kinder to let her go. Whatever decision you make will be the right one.

If she doesn't make it, sending her to your state lab for testing/necropsy may help give you better answers or confirmation of Marek's.

Here's a very good article about Marek's http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq