Hen with wry neck

[chiknGeek]

Two weeks ago, I had an elderly hen with wry neck. She was also sitting on her hocks and generally not seeming well. I tried to treat her with vitamins. She didn't appear to respond, so I ended up culling her. The wry neck came on quite suddenly. She seemed fine when they went into the coop. The next morning she was having the issue.

Now I have another hen with wry neck. She is only 3 years old. She is not hock sitting or otherwise seemingly unwell. She eats with enthusiasm, but I have to hold the food near her face so that she can get to it. Her pecking reflex is good while eating. I am treating her again with vitamins (nutridrench and vit e).

My concern is, 1 how long should I attempt to treat her? And 2, since this has now affected two hens, surely there is a contagious or environmental factor at play. What can I do to determine cause?

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi,

Sorry about your hens.

What breed are these? I ask because if silkie, then I'd lean towards a vitamin deficiency/neurological right off the bat. It still could be though. What do they get for feed?

You can treat her with a Vitamin E 400 IU, once a day. It might take a couple of weeks. Follow up the E with some scrambled eggs to help the E absorb.

In case it's nothing to do with vitamin deficiency, do you have any type of chemicals in the area, like a farmer spraying fields, fresh paint or stain, etc.?

 

[chiknGeek]

The elderly one was a crested cream legbar. The current one is a welsumer.

They are currently on all flock, with free choice oyster shell. Neither had started laying again yet, but both were done with their molt.

We do have a row crop field north of us, but there's a fair amount of distance and a patch of woods between. They haven't sprayed anything recently. I have not painted or stained anything.

I am racking my brain. We did spread ashes from our woodstove onto our gravel driveway fairly recently.

 

[Debbie292d]

The elderly one was a crested cream legbar. The current one is a welsumer.

They are currently on all flock, with free choice oyster shell. Neither had started laying again yet, but both were done with their molt.

We do have a row crop field north of us, but there's a fair amount of distance and a patch of woods between. They haven't sprayed anything recently. I have not painted or stained anything.

I am racking my brain. We did spread ashes from our woodstove onto our gravel driveway fairly recently.

It sounds like it might be something else other than vitamin deficiency, although for the time being, the treatment would still be the same.

Perhaps something in the ashes? People, including us, mix some of our wood ashes into their winter dust-bath bins, so I wouldn't think it would be a problem.

It does seem odd you're experiencing wry neck at all, much less two of them though, so I'm leaning to it's something environmental.

For the rest of them, I would start treating them with vitamin water a couple of times a week. We use Poultry Cell or Nutri-Drench, but there are many other types and brands that are good.

 

[chiknGeek]

I've had chickens for 10 years. This is the first time I've had anything like this.