ive never seen this disease before (loss of balance and poor depth perception)

leveric

Chirping
Apr 19, 2018
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so my 4 yo isa brown has recently been acting strange. at first she wasnt actively eating or drink, i had to encourage her to eat by putting her next to the food and water then she would eat, she also doesnt seem to be showing any pain, and clucks like normal but remains rather docile (mostly sitting all day). recently tho she has shown some interesting symptoms. when going for a feed or drink from the bowls she would completely miss, like her head would be pecking at concrete thinking there was food there before realising what was going on. ive moved her to a small enclosed area with concrete floor and when eating from the food bowl she would scratch the concrete as if looking for food under soil. she also seems to have lost her sense of balance, i saw her on a brick (about 10cm from the ground) and she was struggling to leap back down to the ground. when she did she flapped her wings and treated it as if a 3 meter drop. other things include a drooped comb with some purple, light greenish diarrhea (ill post a pic if need be but now its becoming more full faeces but still greenish), once she had a big drink and when i picked her up a fair bit came out her mouth, and her head and neck move like how a chicken tries to see something in the dark, kind of perching it outwards from her body to look around, like she has problem with perceiving depth. ever come across anything like this?

its been like this for almost two weeks and ive been putting a solution of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids in her drinking water and shes been getting decent doses of grain, what else should i do?
 
Suggesting you add your geographic location to your member icon data. That sometimes help people with giving answers. What I need in northern Minnesota might not be the same as someone in southern California, for example.

Anyway, I recently had a chicken that was not doing very well and I had to take her into the house (garage) for a few days where she could warm up (still in the 20F's outside at night here) and rest and recover. Fed her a scrambled egg every morning with fresh water and feed. After a few days she recovered on her own. I did not use any medications, but I think that might be worth a try if basic good rest and feeding is not helping.

I don't know if 4 years old is advanced age for an ISA Brown, but I have read that the production birds have a shorter life span. My ISA Brown is 3 years old, but she is still doing fine. In any case, if a chicken is acting sickly, I separate them from the flock until either the chicken gets better - or dies. Currently, we have chicken avian flu going around my state and some of our local super markets have no eggs for sale. So I am checking my birds pretty good every day for any signs of abnormal behavior. So far, so good. I hope your hen gets better.
 
ever come across anything like this?
yes, I've seen all these symptoms, except the vomiting after a big drink when you picked her up.

In my bird's case it turned out she was partially sighted, so couldn't find enough food, so was slowly starving. Experimenting, I found she could spot food better when it was on a strongly contrasting background, so I fed her (separately from the rest of the flock) in a plastic storage box (to contain the inevitable mess) with a piece of white non-slip plastic in the base. I wrote the story up here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/raising-a-blind-or-partially-sighted-chicken.75986/ which you might find useful.
 
How is she doing?
Have you noticed any changes in the shape of her eyes?

I would make sure her crop is emptying overnight. Give her vitamin therapy directly. 400IU Vitamin E along with 1/4 tablet B-Complex. A little egg daily will help with the uptake of E.
See that she's eating her nutritionally balanced poultry feed.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
apology for late reply. to update, she is doing roughly the same if not small improvements, she is still eating and her crop is emptying, and her eyes are unchanged, they look like normal. is it okay if i continue using the avi-vital in her water, its pretty much an all in one vitamin solution, while also feeding her eggs and poultry feed?
 
apology for late reply. to update, she is doing roughly the same if not small improvements, she is still eating and her crop is emptying, and her eyes are unchanged, they look like normal. is it okay if i continue using the avi-vital in her water, its pretty much an all in one vitamin solution, while also feeding her eggs and poultry feed?
Yes, I would continue with the Avi-Vital if that's what you have.
See that she's eating well and drinking.
Hard to know what's going on with her, hopefully she will make some improvement.
 
Yes, I would continue with the Avi-Vital if that's what you have.
See that she's eating well and drinking.
Hard to know what's going on with her, hopefully she will make some improvement.
so its been almost a month and overall she has gotten worse, its looking more and more like mareks. so for the first couple of weeks after posting this thread she remained the same, still eating and drinking fine but no iimprovements. in the past few days her legs now barely work and she sits and sleeps almost the whole day while hardly eating and drinking if at all. no cataracts or change of colour in her eyes but still lack of depth perception and balance. so thats the update, id appreciate your opinion on this matter. is this mareks? what do i do?
 

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