Let's talk Wry Neck/Crook Neck

[babychicks7]

Very strange. I saw your post in my email this time regarding wetting the food. I'll give that a try. I haven't thought about that. However here on the forum I don't see it.

BTW, today I caught the girls on my porch stripping my cherry tomatoes off the plants. They sure did love those.

oh that is to funny about the tomatoes my chickens usually get mine! thats weird about it showing up in your email it shows up in post 316 under your pics oh well !

 

[DirkDiggler]

Ohh wow, I just found out that green tomatoes and potatoes are very poisonous to ducks. I'm going to have to make sure they don't get ahold of any more.

 

[chickcrack]

Ohh wow, I just found out that green tomatoes and potatoes are very poisonous to ducks. I'm going to have to make sure they don't get ahold of any more.

I think with potatoes it's just the skin that you shouldn't feed them. I give mine leftover potatoes all the time-no ill effects. There can be a chemical present in uncooked potatoe skins that is poisonous. As for tomatoes I hadn't heard that! Mine wait until they are perfectly red and juicy and ready for my table before they plan their yearly break-in through the garden fence to "taste test" each and every red tomato and grill ready zucchini lol! I swear having chickens is like raising a group of perpetual 2 year olds!!! How are all your little ones doing?

 

[DirkDiggler]

I think with potatoes it's just the skin that you shouldn't feed them. I give mine leftover potatoes all the time-no ill effects. There can be a chemical present in uncooked potatoe skins that is poisonous. As for tomatoes I hadn't heard that! Mine wait until they are perfectly red and juicy and ready for my table before they plan their yearly break-in through the garden fence to "taste test" each and every red tomato and grill ready zucchini lol! I swear having chickens is like raising a group of perpetual 2 year olds!!! How are all your little ones doing?

They are all good with exception of Lucky with the beak issue. She will be going to the bird vet next week when she gets back from the exotic pet conference. The vet said she will see about what she can do regarding surgery for her.

Wry neck hope is very difficult to identify now. Since her head is straight almost always. Only once in a while she will tilt it a little. Problem solved with her. I'll keep giving all of them water with Poultry Cell in it once a week to be sure it stays gone.

I need to take a photo of one and will post it. In growing feathers there is one that has the stem center part of the feathers on some without the fluff on it. I don't understand what that is and why. I'll need to see if anyone on here knows.

 

[may88888]

They are doing good. I'm having a hard time now telling which one the one with Wry Neck was. She has almost completely healed. Just once in a while she will have her neck sideways a little. Lucky, the one with the beak problem isn't great. She has a hard time eating since her beak doesn't pinch together at the same point. I have to have deep food for her and she digs in deep and flings it everywhere while she's trying to pop her head up and get it to go down her throat. She's now about half the size of the rest since she can't adequately feed herself. I still haven't figured out what to do with her. I'm planning on calling the vet to see if there is anything that can be done. Here is a photo of her in their outdoor cage that I keep them in during the day since it's so warm out. They prefer to be out. She looks like daffy duck with that scrunched up beak.

 

[may88888]

I'm currently treating a Rhode Island Red chick with wry neck.She is 6 days old. Her 9 egg mates never made it out of the egg. She has shown huge improvements the past 24 hours(once I increased the vitamin and let her watch the other chickens outside) but looks to have relapsed tonight
Congrats on your success, it keeps,me motivated, along with Una''s tough spirit.

 

[chickcrack]

I'm currently treating a Rhode Island Red chick with wry neck.She is 6 days old. Her 9 egg mates never made it out of the egg. She has shown huge improvements the past 24 hours(once I increased the vitamin and let her watch the other chickens outside) but looks to have relapsed tonight
Congrats on your success, it keeps,me motivated, along with Una''s tough spirit.

What a cute name! Don't give up hope. Recovery from wry neck can be a slow process with 2 steps forward and 1 back. In my experience symptoms are more pronounced in the evening. So none of her hatch mates made it out of the shell at all? Were they in an incubator or under a broody?

 

[may88888]

Thank you. Una obviously means one, but also Unity, as in somehow, we will have more friends for her.
Yes, she is,much worse at night, that's when I felt discouraged,especially when I remember how great she seems when the sun was shining.
She and her egg mates were originally under a hen, who was an inconsistent hen. She eventually stopped laying on them so my partner surprised me with an incubator. There are 10 more eggs in the,incubator, due next week, so I'm hoping a friend will hatch. Ibthink she will thive with a chickie companion as Una is fascinated watching the older chickens. She struggled to get on the grass yesterday when I brought her out to see them. She walked great, and even imitated their pecking!
I guess,I'm anxious about the other eggs , in addition to caring for Una. Feels,like the,newborn stage all over again

 

[DirkDiggler]

May, That's great to hear the story about Una. She's lucky to have you!

For those of you who have done this before, could you take a look, at this photo and tell me if this is normal or not. My ducks are now about 5 weeks old. They have most of their feathers. Still a little yellow fluff here and there on the white ones. The outer feathers on 2 of them look like it only has the inside quill of the feather and the rest of the feather hasn't developed. Is this normal in the development process?

I don't know what Angel Wing is but don't think this is it. Just making sure.

 

[frick01]

My one and a half year old also has Wry Neck. I think she was afflicted from a very young age. She never stayed with the others. She cried a lot. The wry neck came out about six months ago. Nobody knew what it was. I gave her vitamins in her water--a form of gatorade--and she seemed to recover. She has always been the big egg layer and the odd one out. Three days ago the Wry neck came back very badly. Again no one knew what to do. I should have gone online rather than ask at Tractor Supply. Just at this time a hawk--I think--got my favorite hen: Goldie, the Rhode Island Red. Goldie was the glue that bound all the chickens together. She also came to me first and stuck close to me. She got along with everyone. She was not the leader, but, oddly, she kept the cogs moving. I cried bitterly when I found her eviscerated body. This was my first hawk episode. I buried her in the corner of our yard. In the meantime, Rocky, with her Wry neck, was getting worse. I got onto this site and bought a myriad of things: Poly visol. My Wal-Mart didn't have the one suggested but did have one w/o iron. I had some prednisone left from a bad bout of poison ivy. I mixed 10 mg. in water. I first gave the Poly visol, but I got on this site and thought the dosage was far too small so I ended up with softgel vitamin E capsules. They came in IU counts so I looked up the approx. equivalent to mgs. which seems about .67. Anyway, I decided on one IU 400 a day. It was hard getting it in her mouth. This morning I squeezed it on scrambled eggs. She is still around. I had four hens. I have three. One is this Wry Neck hen. The poor dears are all confused. The glue is gone. They hide in the bushes. They often don't come when I call. They lay eggs not in the box but in their roosting shelter. The Wry neck hen lays her eggs in the corner of the pen. I haven't stepped on one yet. Oddly, her eggs are the largest. I, too, wander around feeling unhinged and unglued. People think chickens are chicken, but I think they are very brave given their predators and their vulnerability. I could keep my girls penned all day. They just seemed so unhappy. I thought the plastic owl was working. Nothing happened last summer nor until this September, but fall is in the air; and I think birds are storing up food. I will let you all know about Rocky. She had a very tough early life. I nursed her through it. But she is a great fighter.