Issues with advanced age chickens

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Lady Di, my going-on-fourteen Light Brahma has been struggling with a tumor on her head that appears to be causing extended bouts of wry neck, torticolis. She can't eat and drink on her own when she's like this. She goes to eat and her head involuntarily flips upside down.

So, she has been getting tube fed for the last few days, along with vitamin E and tumeric to fight wry neck. Weakness from hunger and dehydration probably have exacerbated the torticolis and prolonged it.

I have been tube feeding egg and rice cereal with Nutri-drench with sporadic tubing of water. She's been indoors at around 60F for the past couple days since it's been zero degrees. Today, she's trying out being back in the run. At one point in her recent struggle, she discovered that by propping her head against a low perch, she can keep her head straight, something that impressed me. She did it for a good stretch of time, so I think she was doing it on purpose to help her deal with the problem.
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Underlying this struggle is the question of when to euthanize. When I see her standing in a hospital crate with her head and neck hanging down and her head upside down on the floor of the crate, it just tears at my heart, and I struggle between ending her struggle and not wanting to take her chance of a few more months of a very long life if there's a chance she can get through this current bout of wry neck.
 
azygous said:
Lady Di, my going-on-fourteen Light Brahma has been struggling with a tumor on her head that appears to be causing extended bouts of wry neck, torticolis. She can't eat and drink on her own when she's like this. She goes to eat and her head involuntarily flips upside down.

So, she has been getting tube fed for the last few days, along with vitamin E and tumeric to fight wry neck. Weakness from hunger and dehydration probably have exacerbated the torticolis and prolonged it.

I have been tube feeding egg and rice cereal with Nutri-drench with sporadic tubing of water. She's been indoors at around 60F for the past couple days since it's been zero degrees. Today, she's trying out being back in the run. At one point in her recent struggle, she discovered that by propping her head against a low perch, she can keep her head straight, something that impressed me. She did it for a good stretch of time, so I think she was doing it on purpose to help her deal with the problem.View attachment 2948188

Underlying this struggle is the question of when to euthanize. When I see her standing in a hospital crate with her head and neck hanging down and her head upside down on the floor of the crate, it just tears at my heart, and I struggle between ending her struggle and not wanting to take her chance of a few more months of a very long life if there's a chance she can get through this current bout of wry neck.
Click to expand...
Different circumstances and not quite as old but I did try to keep to a three day rule which states that if a sick hen (not one injured and recovering) would not eat on her own after three days I killed her. I couldn't always do it on exactly the fourth day, mainly because I had known some for a decade. I left them with their tribe on that third night, in the tribe coop and killed them the next morning.
I have never regretted doing this, while I have deeply regretted trying to save a few by tube feeding etc when I first started with the chickens in Cataloniia.
 
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My dilemma has been that wry neck treatment can produce no improvement for a couple of days. I hate to give up on Lady Di too soon. And it appears I was right to stick with her treatment into a fourth day because she has been in the run for a couple of hours now without reverting to the torticolis.

I go on little clues such as her strongly fighting being tubed or given medication, and the tried and true vocalizations. It's been my experience that terminally ill chickens are mute and do not put up a struggle when being treated. When Lady Di is feeling well, she's extremely vocal. And loud.

But trust me on this. A chicken with severe torticolis is as pathetic as they come, and the urge to stop the suffering is extremely strong. I urge folks who are treating this disorder not to give up too soon. Another thing I've discovered is tumeric, a natural anti-inflammatory, can help turn the corner in wry neck treatment when vitamin E alone doesn't appear to be improving things.
 
azygous said:
My dilemma has been that wry neck treatment can produce no improvement for a couple of days. I hate to give up on Lady Di too soon. And it appears I was right to stick with her treatment into a fourth day because she has been in the run for a couple of hours now without reverting to the torticolis.

I go on little clues such as her strongly fighting being tubed or given medication, and the tried and true vocalizations. It's been my experience that terminally ill chickens are mute and do not put up a struggle when being treated. When Lady Di is feeling well, she's extremely vocal. And loud.

But trust me on this. A chicken with severe torticolis is as pathetic as they come, and the urge to stop the suffering is extremely strong. I urge folks who are treating this disorder not to give up too soon. Another thing I've discovered is tumeric, a natural anti-inflammatory, can help turn the corner in wry neck treatment when vitamin E alone doesn't appear to be improving things.
Click to expand...
Just out of interest how much turmeric per kilo of bird and how often?
 
Good news! Lady Di has recovered from her torticolis, and she's back out in the run. She's eating on her own, and I am hoping drinking, as well.

I don't tube feed any longer than is needed as I believe the effortless filling of the crop with food and water removes the natural hunger and thirst drives. I'm hoping Di rediscovers her water and drinks or she'll start to decline again.

But for now, the old girl doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
 
My old dog can vouch that curcumin with turmeric is very effective for inflamation/arthritis, since there is no placebo effect when it comes to animals. She went from severely arthritic and barely able to get up and around especially in cold weather, to being able to remain outside and continue her full-time chicken guardian duties.

I am very glad that Lady Di has recovered. Want to mention something about her benign tumor. You previously mentioned in this thread that the tumor was putting pressure on her optical nerve and causing blindness. When you stated that, I was concerned that the very slow-growing tumor might eventually press internally on her brain and cause other symptoms. Without an xray it's impossible to know, but the tumor Could be causing her wry neck symptoms. I once had an elderly dog that in addition to kidney failure, developed a brain tumor that a few times caused him extreme agonizing pain. Once I rushed him to the emergency hospital in the middle of the night to euthanize and end his pain, but before I arrived his symptoms ended as suddenly as they began. Another time when he had an episode the night before, I prepared to take him to the vet for the final time the next morn. But by then he was once again back to "normal". (Still dying slowly from terminal kidney failure, but not in physical pain.) In the end it was kidney failure that ended his life, & not the brain tumor.

The image you portrayed of Lady Di standing in her hospital crate with her head on the ground and upside down is indeed heart-wrenching and beneath her dignity. But I am glad you gave her a little more time to see if the problem resolved. If the tumor is causing the symptoms, they may periodically return. But maybe they won't, especially with turmeric helping tamp down inflammation. Either way, your grand ol dame Lady Di will let you know if she wants to continue her fight to live, or if she is ready to move along.
 
Color me astonished over Lady Di's recovery. Just a couple days ago, it seemed warning lights were flashing the end of the road for her. The wry neck was as bad as wry neck can get. She was unable to lift her head at all for three days. She was weak from not being able to make her head function to target food and water, even in the trial and error, stabbing with her beak until she hits something style of eating she has. Having maybe partial vision in just one eye doesn't easily lend itself to efficient dining and drinking, and even that tortured eating style is useless if your head is upside down.

Yet here she is back roosting in the coop on her low perch, as she has for years, after a normal day in the run raising her voice loudly and often, expressing her opinions, chewing out other hens, and complaining when she sees me that I don't show her near the attention royalty requires.

This is no fragile old hen. I'm pretty sure she's going to see her fourteenth birthday this June, as long as I keep her stuffed with vitamin E and tumeric to control the torticolis.
 

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