Is my Serama having seasures?

[Princess_sheena]

I have 10 or 11 week old serama pullet. I noticed yesterday that her balance was off. When I checked on her again today it wasn't any better so I brought her inside away from the other babies, to keep an eye on her. That was about 6 hours ago. Since then I have seen her have 5 or 6 episodes where her head is back (looking straight up) and is swaying side to side, knocking her off balance all over the place. Does anyone have any idea what it could be? If so, any ideas what I can do for her?

We had a hen die about a month ago and for about a week before she passed she seamed to have the same balance issue but I don't think she was having the strange head movements.

 

[TheBantamPrevails]

Quote:
Was she vaccinated for Mareks or Newcastle?

Maybe she has a vitamin deficiency of some kind? Are you putting chick vitamins in their water?

How is her eating, drinking, pooping, and other activity?

 

[Qi Chicken]

Vitamin B deficiency can cause this kind of imbalance. I don't know if that is it, and frankly you might never know. Pretty much every single chicken disease has some neurological/walking problem. It can be extremely difficult to figure out.

But you can buy vitamin B cheaply and put it in a ziplock, roll it with a rolling pin and sprinkle it on her food if you have her isolated. If you put it in scrambled egg alone, or scrambled egg mixed with yogurt that is good. If you don't have her isolated put brewers yeast on their food, it won't hurt any of them as vitamin B is water soluble.

We had one do this. She got bad, she acted as though drunk, would frequently tip over,there were a few days when she would just lie on her side, couldn't take many steps at all. Actually we never gave her the vitamin B. She wouldn't eat anything wet and got to the point where she wouldn't even eat scrambled eggs. I thought it might be Mareks or botulism because we had a dead toad with maggots in it in the yard. That probably wasn't it though as if they have botulism they are usually dead by the time you figure it out.

I had her isolated for awhile and she didn't improve, I finally put her back with the flock when she didn't fall over as much. She gradually got to where she was just kind of unsteady but had a pale floppy comb. I would say only in the last week, and this all happened in the summer, her comb has gotten more color, stands up straighter and her feathers don't look as ruffled. I don't know if she is laying again or not. She did stop. If you search vitamin B you'll get a ton of posts. The electrolyte mixes have a lot of vitamin B. Thiamin B 12 is the main one.

Good luck to you, I know how worrying this is. I would sit in the run with her when she was sick. She would flop her way over and always wanted to sit in my lap, but would climb up to be under my chin. I went in there just a few days ago and various chickens were coming for their pets and she jumped up and climbed up onto my chest. I think she remembers that time when she wanted hugs all the time. She used to be one of the head hens and now she is not but she is walking ok and I haven't seen her fall over for a long time but she often flies to where she wants to go. She is behind the other ones more often than not.

ETA I just read your post again. I found our hen, Amelia, on the floor of the coop in the morning one day, no idea that anything was wrong the night before. Her neck was stretched out looking up behind her. Look up wry neck and all the stuff for that too. In retrospect I don't think AMelia's neck had much to do with it.

 

[MissJenny]

Firstly,

. We're glad you're here!! This is a great resource for all things chicken.


What you describe in your girl sounds like a kind of "wry neck". This is the result of a vitamin deficiency. There are some who supplement with Vitamin E gel caps pierced and dropped directly into the birds mouth and also vitamin B -- but there are a number of vitamin B's (B-6, B-12, B-complex and on and on -- it is best to research this and figure out which B vitamin precisely.

Another way some people approach this is to use children liquid Poly-vi-sol WITHOUT iron. Some use an eye-dropped and drop it right on the beak. Other mix a few drops with a teaspoon of water and have the bird sip it if it isn't too far gone. The preference is to not drip it right into the mouth due to a likelihood of over-filling the bird and causing liquid to go into the lungs.

The is a search line in the upper right corner. Type in "wry neck" and see information you can find -- see if the descriptions are not similar to the symptoms experienced by your bird.

Best of luck, and again, Welcome,
Do keep us posted,
Jenny

 

[Princess_sheena]

I've been reading other threads looking for anything that sounds like what's happening to her. I'm going to get some vitamins for her tomorrow. She's eating and drinking just fine and her droppings look ok but our hen that died eas eating and drinking ok as well for the first day or so but as she got worse was unable to. Thanks for the advice, I'm praying the vitamins will do the trick.