'Lil help please ... Crookneck?

[mangled]

I had two chicks hatch from some shipped eggs. Two perfect, fluffy Blue Barred Rock chicks made their entrance yesterday.

Both dried off, and went into the brooder. Last night, they were running around, eating and drinking fine. This morning when I got home from work, chick #1 is unable to walk properly. Head all bent around, it's strange. I don't think it's brain damaged, when it's still, it'll peck at the crumble laying around in the brooder, but it is unable to walk at all.

All members of the household have been questioned thoroughly and I am convinced there has been no foul play. The kids are good about telling me things, and will come running for me or Dad when they've done something serious.

Any ideas? Could it be something like Crookneck?

I'll work on getting a pic.

TIA-
Em

 

[Attack Chicken]

It does sound like crookedneck. Give the little one some drops of polyvistal without iron to the beak. Mine that I adopted did the same thing.

 

[Kmillerhan]

I know this is an old post, but just wanted to chime in. I had two black Jersey giants that did this, literally with no warning whatsoever, right when they were about 4-5 weeks old. Put their heads down between their legs and backed up, couldn't walk straight. But they would still eat and drink if we put their beaks in the food and water. So what ended up working was vitamin B12 drops, 2-3 drops in a little water and hand feed morning and night for a week. We isolated the chicks so they wouldn't get hurt by the others. We also had to hand feed them for the first 24-48 hours (yeah, every couple of hours), mashed egg yolk mixed with water and a little mashed feed added in later. Didn't do the electrolytes in the water as when we tried it the chicks went berserk. We were told at the local feed store not to use the electrolytes if we were using the B12. We also did vitamin E capsules, one twice a day for the first 2-3 days, but honestly I think the B12 did the trick. I have the Asian-style spoons that are usually given in the restaurants with soup and that worked really well for getting the food and water down them, as I could tip the edge of the spoon up under their beak and/or when they wanted to try eating on their own the spoon had sides so they didn't make as much of a mess.