Off balance rooster after no crow collar

[Spiritwalker76]

Hello BYC community,
I live in a city where roosters are illegal. Unfortunately, one of our four chicks ended up a roo. He is a speckled Sussex just under 4 months old. We fell in love with him and are trying to be able to keep him. We got a no crow collar and put it on him 2 days ago. He thrashed around a lot at first, but we stayed with him. He didn't seem to hit his head on anything. He has settled down with the collar on, but still nibbles at it. We put it on fairly loosely, I can fit my full pointer finger under it. My concern is that he is now very off balance and it may be getting worse. He is sitting on his butt instead of his feet and staggers around like he's drunk. This morning he didn't come out of his coop right away and has been under the coop instead of out with his girls. I saw him drink yesterday, but I haven't seen him eat.
Thoughts? Could it be related to the collar and if so, how? Could it be something else? Thoughts on what we should do?
I am thinking of removing the collar tonight to see if it changes anything.
Thanks everyone!

 

[Eggcessive]

I would remove the collar at once to see if there is an improvement. Mareks disease can cause symptoms like that, and a riboflavin deficiency may cause some of them. I would start poultry vitamins in the water including vitamin B@ (riboflavin.) Note than Poultry Nutri-Drench does not have riboflavin, but most of the others do. Hopefully this is not Mareks. Here are some links to read:
https://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/217/vitamin-b2-deficiency/

 

[Spiritwalker76]

Thank you! The chicks were supposedly vaccinated for Mareks, so I hope it's not that! I will certainly read the article though and get him started on the poultry vitamins ASAP. We will remove the collar if he is still acting weird tonight when we get home from work. Thank you so much for your reply!

 

[Spiritwalker76]

Took the collar off and he seemed somewhat more stable, however in the coop tonight he was having a lot of trouble getting up to the roost and was unstable while roosting.