drunken walk, extra big ameraucana chick--cause?

[cimarron]

Belinda Update: Well three days into the vitamins, she seems to be out of the woods. She's still on the big side for her age and a little "off" but she is grooming, eating (a lot) and drinking fine. and best of all she is walking around and holding herself up more and brightening up more every day.

That's quite a rally from a few days ago when her legs were totally limp...now let's just hope she doesn't turn out to be a "he"

Thanks everybody! : )

 

[SharonX]

Great news, Cimarron!

And my big girl, black sex-linked, Bella, is now totally normal from being a paraplegic, curly toed, spastic. Amazing what some vitamins can do for a chick... huh?

 

[Tootsie]

Boy that is great! I sure wish it had happened with my Little Phyllis. Vitamins only helped for a little bit and then she regressed.

Glad your news is good.

 

[cimarron]

Yeah!!! Glad to hear that Bella bounced back too.

I got the chicks some nutritional yeast too, and will add that to their feed for the extra B vitamins and minerals while they're growing. Dang that prepared feed...I don't eat prepared food because of the compromised nutrients, I feel silly now for expecting the chicken feed to be much different. I also have been offering lots of whole food scraps and they eat it all: apples, carrots, celery, squash, kefir. They were terribly interested in my breakfast this morning, but I think they ought to hold off on the coffee until they're older : ) don't want the little dears to get hooked when they're so young.

I am sorry your chickie had a different outcome, Tootsie. What happened with your Phyllis?

 

[Tootsie]

She is still alive but her body is terribly twisted. She eats and drinks if you scroll up I wrote a longer explanation, she is very smart if I get a chance I can get a picture but even her wings are out of line I think to keep her balance.

 

[pebblessix]

Treated my little guineas for parasites this week, and also giving vitamins, but they do not seem to be improving.

 

[SharonX]

It takes awhile to fix them with vitamin solution (about 7 days) and you have to catch it early otherwise the condition is permanent.

Evidently if the breeders do not give a good diet, then the egg that supplies the chick's nutrition before hatching is deficient and they develop poorly after hatching.

"Nutritional deficiencies of Vitamin D3, causes soft bones and an increase in lameness in chicks. Riboflavin deficiency will cause a high incidence of curly-toe paralysis, straddle legs and chicks going down on their hocks. "

http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/poultry/factsheets/35.html

I guess that is why my "Raising Poultry" book suggests vitamins for all newborn chicks when bought. I am just glad I was able to recognize the problem from pics in that "Poultry Diseases" book.

Also:

http://aaqmacke.proboards62.com/index.cgi?board=sick&action=display&thread=289

 

[Tootsie]

Well this wasn't the case with Little Phyllis as she hatched here under mom from her mom's egg and I provided healthy food, etc and mom and everyone else before and since are fine. The vet felt it was a freak thing.

 

[cimarron]

From what you describe it sounds like Phyllis is congenitally different. It sounds like she is sweet, and that you are making her comfortable.

 

[SharonX]

Yes Cimarron, Phylis does sound like she had a genetic code dysfunction from birth.

My father had a BS degree in poultry husbandry from Texas A&M which I never really understood. Besides his mother and father raising poultry to eat during the depression and afterward, I do not think he ever used what he learned as he worked for the VA most of his life. I now know that most of that degree had to do with the genetics of poultry breeding.

I never had chickens before just recently and never took a genetics course but spend much of my part-time illustration career since 1991 drawing human genetics drawings for a publisher in NYC. So.. guess the apple did not fall far from the tree -- me, dad, poultry and genetics.