I think one of roosters broke my hen's neck :(

[mprivett]

I am fuming right now......this morning in the coop we found one our our hens, Tansy, collapsed laying down and her head/neck is all twisted underneath her and she can't hold it up by herself. We tried to get her to eat and drink and she will only move her mouth a little to accept water we drop on her but that's about it. I think the other chickens had picked on her because she is a little bloody and her wattles are all swollen.

So now she is just laying in the coop with eyes closed but still breathing. I don't think she will last much longer. We think this was one of our rooster's doing.

We Has anyone else had a rooster that did this? He is an extra roo we are trying to give away and all our hens are terrified of him. We think that when he tries to mount he violently grabs their heads/neck feathers, twists and pulls back. He is more aggressive than the others and a different breed. I'm just so sad that this happened to our hen and I feel so guilty for not culling him already....

 

[AshPack]

I dont think its a broken neck it would have been dead by now. I did see the same sort of thing in a goose once but cant remember what it was!

 

[JosieChick]

This sounds more like wry neck which can have a number of causes. You may want to look it up on BYC, a number of people have had some success nursing these birds back to health. I have had issues with it in my crested birds, silkies, polish. Good luck.

 

[centrarchid]

Isolate hen and watch rooster. Such seems a little extreme for a rooster to do unless something was wrong with hen prior to attack. Some game roosters will do such when young but usually not after first few hours of introduction.

 

[mprivett]

Thank you for your replies. We have her isolated in the coop and all the others shut out. We have a light bulb turned on so she can see. There is a small bowl of water and some bread and food in there too. Is there anything else I can do for her??? She is in the same position, lying on her side, head laying back and curled up, eyes closed, but still breathing. Poor baby

 

[centrarchid]

Avoid use of bread. If trying to stimulate appetite with treats, then use something like meal worms. If she she is not up by end of day, then something else is wrong. Show a picture of head from top and side.

 

[mprivett]

Ok update, we got her to take some vitamins fed through a syringe. We have her propped up on on her tummy and her head is laying on its side. We are going to try and get her to eat something. Maybe some softened food or eggs. We also have mealworms too. She is responding to us when we go out to see her by opening her eyes! I hope she can make it.....

I will try to post pics soon.

 

[mprivett]

Here is a pic of her....she tries to twist her head up underneath her so that it is upside down. She isn't doing too well so we will see if she makes it through the night. We have tried feeding vitamins and raw egg but she doesn't want to eat or drink much. Poor thing.



Sorry the pic is sideways (should be portrait not landscape orientation)...

 

[franklinstreetwest]

It sounds a lot like wry neck to me too. With care, they can recover at times. From what I learned there are two things that are primary causes. Injury to the head, and vitamin deficiency. There are vitamins for parrots called Ornabac that you can get at many pet stores that carry a line of products for them. There are also a lot of threads on here about treating wry neck with vitamins.

In my case, I think my Polish suffered a head injury and swelling....he showed ZERO signs of recovery for three weeks on vitamins. He began to recover when we gave him prednisone. Prednisone is a perscription drug used on humans and animals that reduces swelling, but will also suppress the immune system. It's more of a last resort from what I understand.

While we were treating our head-case, we ground mealworms and scratch into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle. Then we mixed in a little water to get a paste consistency, and force fed with a syringe. My thought process was; the bird can't forage normally and would get less quantity of food from my feedings, so the extra protein from the mealworms would supplement. I also worked out how much water a bird of a particular size should require in a day and I made sure he was getting the required amount of water with electrolytes. We also found, that if we supported his head and held dry food in a way he could see it, he was able to peck food on his own. Water was a different story....that we had to administer by squeezing a couple drops at a time at the side of his beak.

If you can't find the ornabac or some kind of parrot vitamins, there are human vitamins that you can substitute.

Just hang in there and make sure she's getting enough food and water.

Good Luck!!!

 

[centrarchid]

Adding fresh dark greens to diet of entire flock can help with vitamin intake as well. How old is feed? How has feed been stored?