Head shaking, multiple chickens

[Wyorp Rock]

No, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Sure. I have 9 1 week old chicks in the brooder that have begun shaking their heads as well, should I treat them too?

What are you going to use?
For chicks that young, I would just use a very light dusting or if you have liquid Permethrin, then I would "dab" it on with a qtip or something to avoid getting them too wet.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

What are you going to use?
For chicks that young, I would just use a very light dusting or if you have liquid Permethrin, then I would "dab" it on with a qtip or something to avoid getting them too wet.

Permethrin dust, made by ProZap. I will treat all of the birds (including two of the coops not affected and the affected brooder), a little over a 100 birds in total. Will update in 3 or 4 days. Thanks!

 

[LikeTurkeys]

Welp, it's been much longer than 3-4 days. The head shaking spread to all of the birds after just a couple days and the brooder in the garage, which was puzzling because I was very careful not to touch those birds after touching any others. Treating all the birds with permethrin did not have any effect.

So, because it was getting worse and because all of my chickens were affected, I decided to send in a couple of birds Monday for necropsy and testing to one of the UC Davis lab locations here in California. The birds I sent were a 10-week old cockerel I was going to cull anyway and a 3-week old cream Legbar chick who was the same size as a 5 day old (not thriving at all). Both were dropped off live.

Ironically, the day I dropped of the birds, I had a 5-week old gosling die. No prior symptoms and my 9 goslings were not affected by the head-shaking that I could see. So I did a necropsy myself and found that the upper-left part of the heart seemed enlarged and was a dark blue/black color. There was also blood in the abdomen. Not sure what to think but the blood in the abdomen makes me think of trauma, or an injury from a fall, so probably unrelated. (If you would like to know more I will start a different thread with photos of the necropsy).

The lab said that they checked for ear mites and did not see anything. The birds tested negative for avian influenza, Mycoplasma Gallipsectum and did not have any parasites. I am still waiting on most other tests.

What I did not mention here and did not tell the lab (because I thought it was of no significance at first), was that I found mold (or at least, black/green fuzzy material) and clumped together feed at the bottom of every bag for the last 2-3 weeks. At first, I thought it wouldn't hurt them because it was at the bottom, and the rest of the feed seemed fine. I switched from Dumor to Purina because I thought it might have been a brand problem.

But the same thing happened. At the bottom of every bag was clumpy, rotting material. I complained to Tractor Supply and a lady there said they had left the pallets outside for some time, possibly exposing them to rain. She exchanged the bad one for a different bag of feed, which had the same problem. Again, I did not discover this until reaching the bottom of the bag, which means any spores might have been distributed throughout the bag and the chickens were eating that feed.

Finally, yesterday I bought three different bags and checked them carefully. These appear to be from a different batch and even smell different, not as clumpy and fresher. I threw out all the old feed and replaced it with the new.

What I am wondering is if the head shaking is a neurological symptom being caused by low levels of mycotoxins in the feed. This would explain why all of the chickens showed symptoms so quickly because it was not actually a spreadable disease but something caused by the feed.

What do you think? I am planning on calling the lab on Monday and letting them know about this new information. (Long post, I know).

 

[jonalisa]

Welp, it's been much longer than 3-4 days. The head shaking spread to all of the birds after just a couple days and the brooder in the garage, which was puzzling because I was very careful not to touch those birds after touching any others. Treating all the birds with permethrin did not have any effect.

So, because it was getting worse and because all of my chickens were affected, I decided to send in a couple of birds Monday for necropsy and testing to one of the UC Davis lab locations here in California. The birds I sent were a 10-week old cockerel I was going to cull anyway and a 3-week old cream Legbar chick who was the same size as a 5 day old (not thriving at all). Both were dropped off live.

Ironically, the day I dropped of the birds, I had a 5-week old gosling die. No prior symptoms and my 9 goslings were not affected by the head-shaking that I could see. So I did a necropsy myself and found that the upper-left part of the heart seemed enlarged and was a dark blue/black color. There was also blood in the abdomen. Not sure what to think but the blood in the abdomen makes me think of trauma, or an injury from a fall, so probably unrelated. (If you would like to know more I will start a different thread with photos of the necropsy).

The lab said that they checked for ear mites and did not see anything. The birds tested negative for avian influenza, Mycoplasma Gallipsectum and did not have any parasites. I am still waiting on most other tests.

What I did not mention here and did not tell the lab (because I thought it was of no significance at first), was that I found mold (or at least, black/green fuzzy material) and clumped together feed at the bottom of every bag for the last 2-3 weeks. At first, I thought it wouldn't hurt them because it was at the bottom, and the rest of the feed seemed fine. I switched from Dumor to Purina because I thought it might have been a brand problem.

But the same thing happened. At the bottom of every bag was clumpy, rotting material. I complained to Tractor Supply and a lady there said they had left the pallets outside for some time, possibly exposing them to rain. She exchanged the bad one for a different bag of feed, which had the same problem. Again, I did not discover this until reaching the bottom of the bag, which means any spores might have been distributed throughout the bag and the chickens were eating that feed.

Finally, yesterday I bought three different bags and checked them carefully. These appear to be from a different batch and even smell different, not as clumpy and fresher. I threw out all the old feed and replaced it with the new.

What I am wondering is if the head shaking is a neurological symptom being caused by low levels of mycotoxins in the feed. This would explain why all of the chickens showed symptoms so quickly because it was not actually a spreadable disease but something caused by the feed.

What do you think? I am planning on calling the lab on Monday and letting them know about this new information. (Long post, I know).

How many birds do you have in total and for what purpose?

 

[sassychickens76]

Makes sense.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

How many birds do you have in total and for what purpose?

102, more than half of those are chicks under 8 weeks of age. They are my grow outs for breeding, I was planning on culling around 80%.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

Update:
All the birds are still head-shaking, some noticeably more than others. What's new is that last week I hatched out about 30 chicks, and within 12-24 hours, I noticed head-shaking. I cannot think of any disease that can spread so fast, and I was also very careful not to touch these chicks after handling my older birds.

I also went around to several feedstores and observed their chicks. Same thing, head-shaking/twitching. Perhaps the feed?

I did notice that there seems to be more head-scratching in my flock (observed this in some older feed store chicks as well). This makes me think that there is something in their ears, but I don't see anything and I don't think it's plausible for it to affect newly hatched chicks as well, including those not in my flock.

The birds appear to be acting normal otherwise, and I am not seeing a drop in production or activity. Necropsy reports have not returned anything explicit, and the pathologist in charge of my case has about as much an idea of what's going on right now as I do.

In the meantime, I think I am going to stop worrying about it. I will still keep an eye on it, but I am going to proceed with my plans to cull (as I was on hold with regards to seling for a while wondering if this was contagious). I am also going to proceed with adding new birds (from hatching eggs) to my flock.

Here is a video I made yesterday of my flock, the youngest chicks in the brooder are not shown.

I will udpate if anything changes.

 

[neener92]

Update:
All the birds are still head-shaking, some noticeably more than others. What's new is that last week I hatched out about 30 chicks, and within 12-24 hours, I noticed head-shaking. I cannot think of any disease that can spread so fast, and I was also very careful not to touch these chicks after handling my older birds.

I also went around to several feedstores and observed their chicks. Same thing, head-shaking/twitching. Perhaps the feed?

I did notice that there seems to be more head-scratching in my flock (observed this in some older feed store chicks as well). This makes me think that there is something in their ears, but I don't see anything and I don't think it's plausible for it to affect newly hatched chicks as well, including those not in my flock.

The birds appear to be acting normal otherwise, and I am not seeing a drop in production or activity. Necropsy reports have not returned anything explicit, and the pathologist in charge of my case has about as much an idea of what's going on right now as I do.

In the meantime, I think I am going to stop worrying about it. I will still keep an eye on it, but I am going to proceed with my plans to cull (as I was on hold with regards to seling for a while wondering if this was contagious). I am also going to proceed with adding new birds (from hatching eggs) to my flock.

Here is a video I made yesterday of my flock, the youngest chicks in the brooder are not shown.

I will udpate if anything changes.

Any updates?
My flock seems to have just recently started this or I am just now being overly cautious because I lost a few chicks to coccidiosis….they otherwise seem fine as well.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

This also happened to my flock. I had to treat the whole flock for mites / lice. I also treated the new ones (four month olds) even though I saw none on them, and as soon as I treated with permethrin, the head-shaking started. And THEN shortly after, coccidiosis showed up and I lost two of them. The head shaking seemed to get better after the corid treatment, but they are still doing it. Makes me wonder if coccidiosis causes head shaking or if my birds are sensitive and the permethrin caused it. (I also wonder if they got the permethrin in their ears. I tried dust and spray and I couldn't get rid of them, so I had to dip them in a bucket of solution and a few birds went a bit crazy, splashing it everywhere.) Some are doing it worse than others, and it's mostly the hens / pullets that seem to be affected.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

Any updates?
My flock seems to have just recently started this or I am just now being overly cautious because I lost a few chicks to coccidiosis….they otherwise seem fine as well.

This also happened to my flock. I had to treat the whole flock for mites / lice. I also treated the new ones (four month olds) even though I saw none on them, and as soon as I treated with permethrin, the head-shaking started. And THEN shortly after, coccidiosis showed up and I lost two of them. The head shaking seemed to get better after the corid treatment, but they are still doing it. Makes me wonder if coccidiosis causes head shaking or if my birds are sensitive and the permethrin caused it. (I also wonder if they got the permethrin in their ears. I tried dust and spray and I couldn't get rid of them, so I had to dip them in a bucket of solution and a few birds went a bit crazy, splashing it everywhere.) Some are doing it worse than others, and it's mostly the hens / pullets that seem to be affected.

Yes, I do have some updates! I sent a chick in for necropsy and they couldn't find anything that could cause it. The pathologists concluded that it was normal behavior.

I find it really interesting that yours only started after treating for ectoparasites because mine only started head-shaking after my first treatment with permethrin as well (I had a lice infestation that needed it). So it wasn't actually the bugs themselves causing the shaking... go figure.

My birds seem to be doing it much less than they were -- it's now limited to when loud noises occur (which is normal). So again, makes me wonder if there's some connection to the permethrin. Like with your flock, some birds seem to be more prone to it than others. I have a Buff Orpington rooster who still does it more than the others.

Coccidia was diagnosed in my flock a couple of weeks ago as well, but luckily I haven't lost any birds to it. They didn't seem to shake their heads any more than before.

Thanks for sharing!