Luna My Chick has a curled toe and can't stand properly......!

[ChickNanny13]

Wry Neck is treatable ... Treat with vitamins - Vitamin E 400IU & Selenium 25mcg 2 - 3x day, NutriDrench, Thiamine/Vit B1, tuna

Do a search on it, they need to be treated won't 'out grow it'

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

It is ALOT of work to treat. If you decide to try and save a wry neck chick/chicken, you have to commit to alot of time to it. Stretching the chicken's neck in the correct position and holding it in the correct position and rubbing their neck along with the vitamin and anti-inflammatory medicines... alot of work. If you do it only half way, it probably won't work... its also possible you go all out and it does not work. My first wry neck I could NOT get her head back right. I had to hand feed her from Spring (as a chick) until late Fall when she showed me (and insisted on) she could feed and drink by herself. Chicken Little was a house hen. I accidentally ran over her a year later... almost broke me. I currently have another chick with wry neck but this time I took her to the vet and got the anti-inflammatory meds (I only just found out there even WAS a bird vet as NONE of the other vets will touch a chicken). I am doing all the meds, vitamins, and LOTS AND LOTS of physical therapy. Junebug can now feed herself and water herself. She still has a problem now and then when she gets too excited and her neck cramps. I don't think she can be anywhere that is not "safe" or she could get hurt. May end up being another house chicken too...

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

Of COURSE I just go back to check on her (they are all in the bathroom in a rabbit hutch) and poor Junebug was having a spasm with her head down. Her head was all wet so she must have had a spasm in her water dish. I have an elevated dish that is REALLY shallow. It is actually a small candy dish I flipped over so I am using the bottom to put just a little bit of water in it so not to drown my two problem chicks...but it looks like she still almost found a way to do that. I decided to instead of water, put feed in that and soak it with water that is mixed with her vitamins. My first wry neck, Chicken Little, did not get straight water for MONTHS. I fed her only gruel as I wanted everything going in to have food in it so the water intake was included with the gruel. I will just have to monitor these guys water when I put it in there. They CAN drink on their own (unlike poor Chicken Little for her first 4 months of life) it is just when Junebug has a spasm, she can't unlock her neck from between her legs and if that happens to be in water, she could drown. This is a very disheartening experience, for me, the poor hurt chicks, and her sibling chicks that love her so and worry about her. She was doing so well today... now she looks back to miserable... and so does my poor Minion chick with the slipped tendon. She has been unhappy since I changed her bandage. I fear I did it wrong but it was so hard to put on I am scared to put her thru more to fix it until she has had time to relax. I don't want to kill that one from stress, she is so tiny....

 

[ChickNanny13]

We do our best & hope/pray for the best, that's all we can do

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

Today is the first day she has had only one short episode with her head down and that was in the morning. She sleeps with her head down rather than under her wing so when she woke up it was stuck like that but the rest of the day she has been normal... fingers crossed its almost over....

 

[JerryR708]

Keep us posted on your progress and outcome to bring us hope and guidance on future instances. This must be a common issue or I ended up with a bad bloodline. My first batch had lots of problems..one walking backwards with head on sideways, one with curled toe, one missing toe, one shrink wrapped, one assisted hatch..sigh

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

My first attempt at hatching a duck it was shrink wrapped and didn't make it. I was in hysterics. It was suppose to replace the duck I just lost... I then went with the silkie eggs and two barred rock eggs. One of the barred rocks died just two days later after its umbilical cord area became infected. It was perfect the day before and the next morning it was limp and weak and I saw its navel was inflamed. After that I swabbed the other chick's navels as they hatched with iodine like you do with a horse's foals navel at birth. Then one egg died before it hatched because it was breech and I had to assist with two others. The very last was the poor little silkie Minion with the slipped tendon. He has been struggling from day one. He is almost the same size as when he was born despite me hand feeding him along with regular feed. (I have a thread on his progress also) It does appear that June Bug is going to make a recovery. When I had a wry neck chick 3 years ago, I did not do the extensive physical therapy because it seemed to hurt her so much but when I took Junebug to the vet, she said it is necessary or the neck will freeze up twisted despite the vitamin treatments. So this time I am doing the vitamins, physical therapy, and the anti-inflammatory treatments. It SEEMS to be working... I will see if she relapses tomorrow...

 

[JerryR708]

Glad to hear that Lil June Bug is hangin in there with physical therapy, vitamins and treatments. I bought my first batch from a feed store and after several weeks, one of the chicks was limping. All the other chicks were growing fast and the one that was limping was staying small to a point that it was a third the size of the other birds. I had to separate it from the rest of the flock. I ended up building another special coop and caring for this under developed bird in isolation for the next year before it was eventually found dead in its coop. It could stand and eat, but couldn't walk. I let it outside daily for sunshine when the other birds were still contained because they all wanted to kill it except for my Araucana. The Araucana seemed to understand and show compassion toward the lil runt. The RIR's acted like vicious Pit Bulls toward it and the Black Sex Link stayed neutral like live and let live toward it. This showed me all the chickens true character.