EMERGENCY! EXTREMELY sick hen!!

[Laylashens]

It’s been over a week now and it doesn’t look like her life is in danger, but Fluffy is still acting sluggish. At first it looked like she had injured a leg but now it is looking fine. She is eating and drinking; comb is red and eyes are bright. She hasn’t laid any eggs ever since she got sick and sits/stands around. About every 5-10 minutes she gets up and walks a few yards.
She moves like she is really sleepy and has just woken up.

 

[Eggcessive]

Can she hold her head up, or is her neck still bent downward? Is she getting enough to eat and drink? What antibiotic were you using? I would give her some vitamins including vitamin E and thiamine, and a bit of scrambled egg daily, in case she has wry neck. Some probiotics or a little plain yogurt or cottage cheese would help with getting her gut bacteria back to normal after antibiotics.

 

[Laylashens]

Thanks!
I gave her some yogurt right away but she didn’t seem interested in it at all. She did not try to fight or run away, so I placed her in front of the yogurt and gently tipped her beak in it. It looked like she was drinking it up little by little. I could move her neck up and down with no resistance. If I tipped her beak in yogurt she kept it there. If I tipped it upward, she let it stay there, too.
My family is suggesting that it might be a neurological problem. If so, what kind of diseases are associated with Fluffy's behavior?

 

[Eggcessive]

I would do some reading about wry neck and Mareks disease. Wry neck can be a neurological symptom of head injury, vitamin E or B1 deficiency, but can also be seen in Mareks disease and several others. A limp neck combined with flaccid paralysis of legs and wings could be a symptom of botulism, but since she is not paralyzed, it isn’t that. So I would treat with the vitamins for wry neck, and watch for any other symptoms. Here is a link to read about Mareks disease:
https://extension.umd.edu//sites/ex...Preventing Mareks Disease in Small Flocks.pdf

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq.66077/

 

[Laylashens]

Today Fluffy is looking a lot worse. We’ve been giving her egg for three days now. For some reason I can’t upload a video on BYC, so here is a link to how she’s looking:

 

[Laylashens]

Now she looks like this: