Off balanced silkie hen! Help me!!!!

[silk kristel]

This may seem unnfriendly and I apologise but it's simpler to just put this down in point form.
1yo hen
Vaccinated
Stilted walk
Bum to high when she walks. As off she feels she is going to fall forward.
When running she will fall to her left.
Happy chatty and wants attention will try to follow kids.
Clean eyes ect
No lumps can be felt
Breathing normal
Has been on antibiotics for 8 days
Now on bran/mash/garlic and multivitamin.
Eating drinking fine

Is this mareks?
Should I destroy her now
I have tried as she is mentally fine and vitals are good.
Plus she is the kids fav
I have many young chicks I'm concerned for although she is isolated and has been for 10 days.
Ps I'm new to this site so hope I'm doing this correctly
Thanku thankyou to anyone who offers advise

 

[chooks4life]

It's not unfriendly to put it in point format, much easier to understand quickly than a whole brick wall of text with no capitals, commas or paragraphs!

Hello and

Doesn't sound like Marek's to me.

Sounds like an unusual injury; I've seen the reverse, where a hen with smashed pelvic bones had to waddle upright like a penguin, but never this chest-down one... I did see a strange case where a hen's legs would go out behind her when she tried to walk forwards, leaving her high kicking behind herself as though they were tied to something behind her though.

Are you able to get some photos or a video of her?

Best wishes with her.

 

[Eggcessive]

Even if she had Mareks, there would be no point in destroying her now since Mareks is now in your soil and everywhere since it is spread from dandruff, dust, droppings, etc. I would put her on vitamins (poultry vitamins in water are easiest) just in case it is a deficiency, and probiotics after completion of your antibiotic. If you have had her the entire time and added no other birds from other sources, I would doubt that she would suddenly get Mareks if she has always been on your property. Here are some excellent links to read on Mareks:
http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
http://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/avian-atlas/search/disease/502

 

[silk kristel]

Hi thankyou for getting back to me. We have introduces new chickens to our property over the past 4 months but no other have had this type of problem.
"Chooks4life" I do have photos and video but I'm unsure how to show you this. Photos don't show anything
She is now on vitamins so hope to help her

 

[chooks4life]

Many things are effectively invisible until you have enough knowledge or experience to spot them. Anyway, hope she gets better.

Best wishes.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Wry neck is all too common in silkies and the muscle atrophy often begins in the feet and legs. As eggcessive has advised , a good poultry vitamin that includes thiamine ,niacin and vit E would be my first course of action.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/216/vitamin-bi-deficiency

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/pou..._poultry/vitamin_deficiencies_in_poultry.html

 

[silk kristel]

Thankyou to all. It was found that she did has a vitamin deficiency.
I found out too that she was bred with multiple time and was never given any nutrients afterwards.
A lesson learnt and my entire flocks diet has been changed to prevent this ever happening again.
She has been put down as it was too late to help her in the end
I'm so grateful for this site I just wish I had of joined earlier
Thankyou

 

[Fancychooklady]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[chooks4life]

Thankyou to all. It was found that she did has a vitamin deficiency.
I found out too that she was bred with multiple time and was never given any nutrients afterwards.
A lesson learnt and my entire flocks diet has been changed to prevent this ever happening again.
She has been put down as it was too late to help her in the end
I'm so grateful for this site I just wish I had of joined earlier

Thankyou

Sorry to hear she died.

Does raise a few questions though... How was a 1 year old hen bred with multiple times? If she had sufficient nutrition to begin with it would have been fine, on a decent diet hens don't need additional nutrition after breeding.

Being a silkie she wouldn't have laid much at all. Did she brood, or were all her eggs incubated artificially or by other hens? Even then, at most a silkie hen that age wouldn't have brooded more than twice, hardly the stuff overbreeding is defined as. Or did you find out she was older than you initially thought?

If she was on a normal diet, even the standard diet shouldn't have left her bereft after a normal breeding season, after all she's a silkie not an isabrown for example. No massive production demands on her system.

To me this suggests whoever bred her keeps all their animals on a deficient diet, for an animal that age to run down so rapidly with such low demand on it suggests a multi-generational deficiency, meaning all offspring hatched deficient, which is almost impossible to make up for during their later lives. You can patch them up and get them back to a semblance of health but if they never had a truly decent start they're permanently below par, unfortunately, and when anything strikes --- illness, injury, whatever --- they do not respond like animals who had better starts, their poor beginning immediately shows through like light through a threadbare curtain. They've got no real resilience to fall back on. They look fine from some angles though, but don't hold up to investigation. Too many people scrimp on their beginnings without thinking of the long term outcome of doing so.

Anyway, best wishes in future. Sorry your kids lost their favorite.