Neck Injury - Please help

[PtldChick]

I have a question for those of you experienced with or knowledgable about wry neck and other neck issues...

I have ~2 week-old bantam red frizzle whose neck is crooked - turned to the right and down, so that the right eye is facing downward and left eye up. I believe she was injured on the ride home when the chick box slid across the van (I drove very carefully, but the flattened wire crate the box was on must have been slippery...please don't berate me for putting it there, lesson learned).

She was not like that when I got her.

When I got home last evening and put them in their crate, I noticed she was just sitting there and wouldn't move. Having already read a little on wry neck, I knew it was a vitamin deficiency so I immediately gave her a little Poly-Vi-Sol and a bit of water. She perked up, started standing, then walking, and is drinking and eating on her own, but her neck is definitely crooked. I can move it into place gently without pain (at least she doesn't cry out), but it doesn't stay there.

Since this is most likely an injury, will the wry neck treatment of VitE/Selenium help? I suppose it couldn't hurt and I'll try it. Do I give her the contents of a whole capsule? She's pretty little.

As an injury, what's the prognosis it will get better? She seems to be adapting for the moment, and I know animals are very resourceful at surviving all sort of conditions. The other 3 banty chicks are not picking on her or ignoring her so I'm leaving her with them. I think she'd be more unhappy on her own than with her peeps.

Is there anything else I could do? I don't have prednisone, is there something else I could give to relieve any inflammation which there likely is if it's an injury?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TwoCrows]

It sounds like it is an injury and not wry neck, so I don't think the wry neck med's will help here. Don't feel badly or beat yourself up. These things happen to babies as they are delicate. It is good that the others are not picking on her as a chick being alone is never a good thing. I don't think there is much you can do at this point other than make sure the chick is comfortable and eating and drinking. I don't know of any you could give the chick to remove the inflammation. I think you are going to have to wait this one out and if she gets in a bad way you may have to put her out of her misery. Although some vitamins never hurt anybody and maybe it would increase the time it takes for the chick to heal. I am sorry about your baby.

 

[PtldChick]

Anyone else have any ideas! I hate to see her this way, her neck is getting worse even though I've been giving her vitamins.

It seems to stress her out for me to do that and it takes a little while for her to 'recover' from the experience. I tried a little cardboard neck brace but all she did was flop around and dislodge it (maybe she had gotten used to her balance with the crooked head and straightening her head threw her off). That really seemed to exhaust her. I've even tried massaging her neck but it doesn't seem to help.

When I came home this afternoon she was lying in the food bowl, I don't know if she was stuck or just in there to eat. Tonight I heard her crying out and she had gotten stuck between the water dish and the front door of the crate and was all wet so I took her out and dried her with a blow dryer. When she huddles in the corner, her three brooder mates gather around her but also on top of her and she chirps for them to get off.

I can't feel anything in her neck/spine that seems out of place as to why her neck would be like that. But an injury makes most sense because she was fine when I picked her out and not fine when I got her home. I would ask the store to replace her but it would cost twice as much in gas to go back as I paid for her. And she was the best one - frizzled and most feather development (straight run red frizzle banties).

I don't know if I should continue with the vitamins and stress her out, or just let her be and see if she heals on her own.

 

[Daisy668]

Maybe seperate her from the rest of the chickens and put her somewhere safe in a dog carrier or something like that. Chickens are tough so she might recover in her own time. If its muscles she ripped it could take ages for her to repair but don't give up on her. As long as she's not in pain just keeping helping her.
Good luck to you and your chickens.
Daisy. xx