Four week old chick has trouble standing and walking

[prov31mom23]

I saw him only briefly this evening so my description is not as detailed as I'd like...

But one of our 4 week old meat chicks was not acting normally this evening. He seemed to roll onto his back whenever he tried to stand or walk according to my husband. It was as though his feet or legs could not support him. He's one of our smaller chicks, btw. I've tried to find information about what might cause something like this but have come up short.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me - for what it might be, what I can do about it, or how to search more effectively for answers to what is happening and how to treat it?

Thank you in advance.

Pamela

 

[Judy]

If they are CornixhX, this is not unusual. Because of their breeding, their legs and hearts are quite weak. I suggest you eat him earl.

 

[prov31mom23]

THey are Freedom Rangers, not CornishX.

 

[prov31mom23]

If you want to see a video of this little guy in action, please see the video I posted publicly on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10201195191466199

I posted it publicly so everybody should be able to see it.

 

[prov31mom23]

So I've had the opportunity to watch him more closely this evening. He appears to have a problem with balance or equilibrium. He is a bit unsteady on his feet and frequently totters backwards a few steps before regaining control. He eats and drinks normally, hangs with the other chicks, flies, even runs. But he's just not quite steady on his feet. He is the smallest of the chicks we got - probably half the size of the largest ones.

I have no idea what's causing this or what to do about it.

 

[Elke Beck]

So I've had the opportunity to watch him more closely this evening. He appears to have a problem with balance or equilibrium. He is a bit unsteady on his feet and frequently totters backwards a few steps before regaining control. He eats and drinks normally, hangs with the other chicks, flies, even runs. But he's just not quite steady on his feet. He is the smallest of the chicks we got - probably half the size of the largest ones.

I have no idea what's causing this or what to do about it.

First, how committed to working on this chick are you? given that in another 8 weeks he will probably be in the freezer? Because you can spend time and money and not get a good return.

Based on the video, I would separate him with one or two chicks his own size so that he is not getting run over by the bigger chicks and has better access to food. If you want to spend the $, try giving him a vitamin supplement, like Polyvisol without iron to see if he just needs a little better nutrition. He could have something congenital that is going wrong or he could have been injured by the other chicks.

 

[BCMaraniac]

I saw him only briefly this evening so my description is not as detailed as I'd like...

But one of our 4 week old meat chicks was not acting normally this evening. He seemed to roll onto his back whenever he tried to stand or walk according to my husband. It was as though his feet or legs could not support him. He's one of our smaller chicks, btw. I've tried to find information about what might cause something like this but have come up short.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me - for what it might be, what I can do about it, or how to search more effectively for answers to what is happening and how to treat it?

Thank you in advance.

Pamela

I had a 3 week old Red Ranger doing the very same thing. I gave electrolytes, it ate, put some Sulmet in its water, and the next day it seemed better. However the following day it was laying on its side, and nothing I did seemed to help. Finally, I could not stand to watch it suffer any longer, and culled him.

FWIW, I had mine vaccinated for Marek's, which as I understand is an attenuated(partially inactivated, but still alive) vaccine, which means it could cause a very mild form of the disease. The thought just crossed my mind that if the vaccine was a little stronger than it should have been, perhaps it caused it to get a bit sicker. I couldn't tell if mine was a balance problem or a weakness problem, but I did note that once it was on its side and could no longer sit that the wing on the underside was fully extended.

 

[Life is Good!]

I would try the Poly-vi-sol without Iron (available at all Walgreens in the infant vitamin section). At this age, I'd give a few drops 2x/day (like 3 or 4 drops/chick). Because this one is so much smaller than the others in your video, I'd suspect this little one got pecked on the head one too many times! Because I'm a big proponent of poly-vi-sol, I'd give all the chicks some - 1x/day - at least for 10 days. That should just about use up the bottle too! Trying to get it into their beaks is a challenge at their age (I generally do from arrival to about 2wks old)...you hold in one hand, and with the dropper, try to pry their beak open at the corner of their beak/head joint. It's challenging, and sometimes, they wear it (absorbs into skin?!)....but well worth the effort overall for health.

Our FR's had a smallish pullet chick - she did much better with the poly-vi-sol and making sure she got food 2x/day helped as well. I got a piece of plexiglass scrap - put it across one corner of the brooder box - and would put her, a friend or two and a HUGE amount of feed in with them. They'd gobble as much as they could, I took the feed out and took out the plexi. Generally took about 5-7min for them to eat like this. Not too much in terms of time commitment.

 

[prov31mom23]

Thank you for all the great advice. I'll pass it on to my husband, who is the primary chick caretaker this week since I am so busy with work right now. I will give a brief, positive update, though. As I observed the chick yesterday afternoon, he seemed less unstable. This afternoon, he continued to improve - he seemed to balance much more easily and he wobbled only very briefly. It's getting harder to identify him among all the other chicks because his movement has normalized so much.

My husband is wondering if he maybe got overheated a few days ago when the temp in the greenhouse rose to over 100 degrees and the heat affected him in some way. We started them in our hoophouse with supplemental light and heat and moved them out last week, only to move them back a few days later when temps dropped into the 30s at night. Then the temp soared unexpectedly on Tuesday or Wednesday so we moved them back outside. It was the next day when we discovered the chick acting the way he was.