LAST UPDATE: Silkie Chick Ate Moldy Treat / Wry Neck

[Swbertrand1]

Hey everyone!

Some of you have followed the progress of our now 14-1/2 week old Silkie that we thought had gotten into a molded chick treat back on June 21, 2021. It turns out that may still have been the case, but the symptoms also pointed to Wry Neck and her treatment, starting with charcoal flush, moved in that direction a few days later, about June 24.

This odyssey began when we found her the morning of June 22 on the floor of the coop flailing and unable to get up off the floor that she had likely fallen to during the night or trying to jump down from her roost bar, so it's taken a full month for her to recover to this point. AGAIN, I'll say: don't give up on your babies with Wry Neck too quickly. The recovery process can be quite slow and take weeks, but the outcome can be WELL WORTH THE WAIT!

After some 3 weeks living in our home, she's back in the coop (tonight will be her 5th night) since she's now running, jumping, doing the running/flying "happy dance", dust-bathing, scooting around with all the other chickens, eating & drinking like a growing chick should, goes up and down to her roost bar easily (19" off the floor), playing like she did before with her sister, and is back to herself almost completely! She even gained nearly 1/2 lb in weight over the last month, weighing exactly what her sister does to within a 1/2 an ounce, 1lb-10.5oz versus her sister's 1lb-10oz weight - yep, she outweighs her sister by a 1/2 ounce!

Here are a few photos of her from yesterday with some photos of the worst of her condition at the bottom of the page:

And here she was a month ago:

Sleeping on "Daddy's" hand - one of her favorite places to be through this ordeal:

 

[Hannahnic14]

I'm so happy your chick is better!! Mine has definitely improved but still a bit wonky. We have decided to keep him and his female littermate in a coop together for awhile. He's growing like crazy tho!

 

[Swbertrand1]

I'm so happy your chick is better!! Mine has definitely improved but still a bit wonky. We have decided to keep him and his female littermate in a coop together for awhile. He's growing like crazy tho!

Love to hear that he's improving! Consistency and persistence in the treatments is the key in my opinion. Keep up with the treatments and increase them if you have too. We went to the equivalent of three (3) 400IU Vitamin-E (with Selenium mixed in) per day. She was also getting a powerful Vit-B12 dosage, and we were adding Vit-B4 that we couldn't find in any of the poultry supplements. What worked for sure? I can't say, but I'm STUNNED at her improvement!

This little girl almost looks like she never had the condition, but we're going to continue her Vit-E/Selenium (Durvet for goats) for at least another two weeks, slowly dropping to lesser dosage amounts after that. She's not out of the woods, but she's better than 95% back to herself pre-wry neck, and she's happy. That's the best part, that she can do all the things she was doing before this started! She is incredibly playful for a chicken, almost like she's a reincarnated human jokester and prankster, and she's incredibly friendly. I didn't think she'd come around, but my bf wouldn't let her go without a fight. It was his dedication to this chick that made this happen, and we're both elated that she's so much better!

I hope we hear good news about Trompo in the near future. Stay with the treatments; it can take a while. It's worth noting that our girl hit a plateau in improvement after about the 2nd week, and that was the reason for the increase in dosage and the change from Vit-E gelcaps to the Durvet Vit-E/Selenium paste/gel. It seemed to work for us as she started to improve markedly going into the late third and early fourth week.

S