Neck hanging. Looks very strange. Weird. Please help anyone.

[johnscalido]

Another question. We had a very cold night last night in Alabama. I live in a farming community just south of Alabama. One of my Cornish Crosses got up this morning and looks very strange, his head is sort of twisted. Is this the dreaded "Newcastle" disease. Is his neck just stiff from the cold. He cannot keep his up up straight, it is sort of hanging to the side. He is feeding and drinking normally. Is there anything that I can do.

 

[joy]

The cold will have nothing to do with it ,hope he improves. Google (twisted neck in chicken) and information will appear.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

So its the actual neck, not a droopy crop? I had a hen w/a droopy chest/neck that we discovered had an impacted crop.

 

[ranchhand]

Check for the obvious, the crop. Have you visited anyone with birds or brought any new ones in? Then you would have a worry about disease. I'd separate the bird and start supportive care while observing to see how it goes.

How old is this bird? Do a search for "wry neck" too.

Tough situation, hope you can figure it out.

I did have to chuckle because you said you live just south of Alabama. Stress induced typo I'm sure, but I immediately pictured a raft in the (poor dirty) Gulf. Hope none of that is hurting you.

 

[johnscalido]

This is what my bird looks like. I must admit that I did google "hanging neck" before coming to BYC and thank you to the person who suggested I google "twisted neck" I must admit it helped a bit better.

 

[johnscalido]

 

[johnscalido]

I must admit something. In fact I overlooked something that happened a few nights ago that I have suddenly realised. I have a habit of going into the chicken coop every night and on one night my feathered friend had over-eaten. I was raising them on Grower mix, "a powdery substance" that I got from the pet store and alternated it with starter crumbles from the time they were chicks. On visiting the Pet Store I was told that I could feed my birds on "finisher pellets" which were used to make the birds a bit more heavier in the sixth week. I think the birds were a bit optimistic and admittedly it must have been the fact that I kept them hungry almost half the day when I arrived with the 'finisher pellets" and this is when I realised that one of the birds were coughing and it looked like it was choking. I tried to give the bird water but it completely refused. I must have tried to force it to drink and pulled the neck down towards the water. I did feel as if I might have pulled a bit hard and it sounded to a small degree as if I tore something in the neck lining. Initially I thought I must have hurt the bird but the next day everything seemed normal. In fact three days later the bird was doing OKAY and suddenly the neck started to hang. The bird seems very "NORMAL" though. When I say "NORMAL" it means that it does not seem to be sick at all. It is drinking and eating perfectly fine.

 

[johnscalido]

Could the quick transition from starter crumbles to post finisher pellets have caused the problem. I think the bird started coughing because it's crop was entirely and completely full and overloaded. Could the problem lie with the crop and thus straining the neck muscles which have caused the neck to collapse entirely.

 

[MissJenny]

Do a search here for "wry neck" -- if I have this right, wry neck is the result of a nutritional deficiency. Just because birds or even people for that matter are eating and even over-eating, does not mean they are consuming a balance of needed nutrients.

If this is the case you will need something like Poly-Vi-Sol Children's Liquid Vitamins WITHOUT iron. A few drops on the beak several times a day will help. Some people also add vitamin E and Vitamin B12.

Jenny

 

[johnscalido]

Okay guys I think I might have an answer. I was the whole night in the chicken coop and no problems. I got up this morning and started giving my chickens lukewarm water. I almost had disaster. We had a very, very cold night. In think it is a bit misty this morning and I am now almost certain that "wry neck" has got something to do with the cold and maybe the fluctuations with temperature. My 6 week old bird seem to have recovered slightly. I started to play with the neck and made some adjustments to the floor which is rather cold and they are now sleeping on a cardboard box which keeps out the cold. It does not seem so twisted this morning. After giving my 3 week old chicks water they went into a frenzy, some of them freezed up and collapsed. Luckily at the time of writing I have had no casualties. However I still have to run back home from work just to check up on them. Those that collapsed I kept them under a 250 watt Infra-red globe and they seem to recover slowly. I then had a chick that somehow got trapped under the flock and noticed on closer inspection that it had deveoped wry neck. I started to massage the area and unbelivably it stood up straight. I kept it under the 250 watt globe and almost immediately it seemed to recover. I am not sure if it had its neck trampled on because I am currently keeping about 300 chicks and I have lost about 10, therefore I am down to 288 or something. I have quite a bit of chicks so it is hard to tell but I think that if you spot the problem soon enoughthen you could sort out the problem with a bit of heat and massaging the affected area. I also increased there feed with chick starter crumbles. The stronger ones immediately snapped out of there cold symptoms and started to feed. The others were just getting out of the cold problem. I am not saying that wry neck is not caused by injury or nutritional deficiency but it can almost be a combination of injury, nutritional deficiency and more importantly especially in my case temperature especially caused after drinking water in cold conditions. I might have a bit criticism from the experienced guys but I can almost say for certain that the wry neck problem occurs more in meat birds such as cornish crosses because they seem to be a bit more weaker than laying birds. Maybe we need to add a little more heat.