Help Please!!!!! My Silkie is paralysed!!!!! UPDATED!! VIDEO!!!

[silkiemelon]

It does sound more neurological, but I can't say for sure.

You're doing all the right things for her, don't worry!
I'm sorry I don't have any more info to help, but I hope she'll be ok.

Let us know how she is in the morning

 

[Reurra]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions and replies.

I too read that Mereks strikes at an older age than this so i was really crossing my fingers on that one.
Today she is walking on the leg though limping more so. I read about silkies having problems. Her head isnt swollen though.

Ive been trying to get polivisol but it seems all the stores here are out of it. If I order it on line it will take about 2 weeks to get here. Is there anything else I cna use in the meantime? I did put vitamin booster in thier water as a start. Where do i get the vitamin E? What does that do for her?

If it is Mereks, how long does she have before its fatal?

Heres an off question though. Stumpy has grey green eyes where his sisters all have black with a gold ring. He has dwarfed leggs. Can Mereks do this? hes always had problems since birth.

Here she is this morning. See her foot out? I moved her back in with the others because if it is Mereks they have been exposed already. That and she cried most of the evening and would not go to sleep.

 

[Reurra]

the upper foot is the paralysed foot. I cant find anything broken.

 

[FlyHigher]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions and replies.

I too read that Mereks strikes at an older age than this so i was really crossing my fingers on that one.
Today she is walking on the leg though limping more so. I read about silkies having problems. Her head isnt swollen though.

Ive been trying to get polivisol but it seems all the stores here are out of it. If I order it on line it will take about 2 weeks to get here. Is there anything else I cna use in the meantime? I did put vitamin booster in thier water as a start. Where do i get the vitamin E? What does that do for her?

If it is Mereks, how long does she have before its fatal?

Heres an off question though. Stumpy has grey green eyes where his sisters all have black with a gold ring. He has dwarfed leggs. Can Mereks do this? hes always had problems since birth.

Here she is this morning. See her foot out? I moved her back in with the others because if it is Mereks they have been exposed already. That and she cried most of the evening and would not go to sleep.

Does she have any neurological symptoms on her neck? Paralysed neck is one of the typical symptoms of MD.

 

[Reurra]

There does not seem to be any paralysis in the neck no. The other leg is strong and wiggling when I pull on it lightly. Its just the right leg that i can find the problem. It hangs when i lift her. She does move it if I gently squeeze the foot. The more i watch her the more it looks less like paralysis and more of some sort of weakness bordering paralysis.

She gets up and eats and drinks and waddles around with the other babies.

I just caught Buster my bantam cochin roo jumping on her back and pulling her little head tuft......hes a bit young for that isnt he? He doesnt have all his feathers yet.

 

[FlyHigher]

There does not seem to be any paralysis in the neck no. The other leg is strong and wiggling when I pull on it lightly. Its just the right leg that i can find the problem. It hangs when i lift her. She does move it if I gently squeeze the foot. The more i watch her the more it looks less like paralysis and more of some sort of weakness bordering paralysis.

She gets up and eats and drinks and waddles around with the other babies.

I just caught Buster my bantam cochin roo jumping on her back and pulling her little head tuft......hes a bit young for that isnt he? He doesnt have all his feathers yet.

Good news. It's probably not MD.Maybe she just somehow hurt her leg.

 

[Reurra]

I watched her just do that little wing stretch chicks do, with that same leg.....she doesnt cry when I touch it though. Maybe it has to do with Buster being a bully and jumping on her....hes only about 6 weeks old too.

Gosh I realllllly hope its not Mereks!! I was so scared I would lose my whole flock!! After all the care and love I gave them!!

Now I know what it must be like for folks who deal with MD. My heart goes out to all of them! Poor dears!

I truely pray and hope its just a bruising, even a vitamin dificiency isnt all that bad!

 

[leadwolf1]

First off, this is not true. Now, before I go any further, I will tell you how I know this.

For the last year, I have battled Marek's in my flock. To date, I have lost 35+ birds. If there is one disease I know, it is Marek's.

Marek's strikes in many ways...only a few of my birds, I can count them on one hand, have shown neck symtpoms. Some of them, have shown no symptoms...alive and running one minute, dead the next. Those, I had necropsied. They were rittled with tumors. Just none in the nerves that would have caused the classic paralysis.

If Buster is jumping on her, you need to remove her for her safety. If chickens sense something is wrong, they will jump and kill the sick/injured bird. If you want to do something, bring a friend inside with her. He also could have injured her sensitive brain tissue. As for the Marek's and separating...it has been shown that a bird with active Marek's sheds more virus then those that are asymptomatic...so, by leaving her in there, you are actually putting your other birds at a higher risk.

As for Stumpy...sounds like a birth defect if he has been that way all the time. Marek's does not show that type of symptoms...especially in very young birds. I have not lost any chicks before the age of 10 weeks.

My best advice to you...remove and quarantine her. If it's Marek's, she will not last long at her age. It will kill within a week, two at the most. Give her vitamin therapy..the vitamins in the water will do until you can find the poly vi sol. If she passes, have a necropsy performed so that you will know what she died from. This is the only way that you will ever know....and, for your sanity and the sake of your flock, this is truly the way to go.

Does she have any neurological symptoms on her neck? Paralysed neck is one of the typical symptoms of MD.

 

[FlyHigher]

Yes, leadwolf1 is correct. Lots of chickens who have MD do not show any neurological symptoms on neck, wings or even legs.
However, besides MD, lots of other diseason can cause limp or paralysed legs, for example, ND, IBD, Fowl Cholera,Botulism,Avian Encephalomyelitis,etc.
You'd better do some search about these diseases yourself to find out what happened to your chicken.

 

[Reurra]

What Im confused about is the manner in which she is acting. One minute her leg seems weak, the next minute she is walking with it. She has normal poo, normal appetite, normal drinking. When i hold her she sleeps, but when she is with the other chicks she is alert, preening even trying to chest thump. I will take her out again, and maybe put her in with my little black silkie too. She isnt displaying any of the other symptoms that i ahve seen posted on MD or any other disease mentioned. The worst part of it is the leg, everything else about her is normal.

Im just downright stumped and confused.

How are silkie chicks brains different from a normal chicken? Can pulling on her puff feathers hurt her brain? I read on an earlier post that the skull is open. I cant feel any open spots in her cranium.

Buster is the only one jumping on her. He is doing exactly what a roo does to hens, he is climbing up on her back and holding on to her head feathers. She screams and shakes him off, then he bebops away acting like nothing happened.

She just mused her bad foot to scratch her head....