Paralyzed chicken healed - Don't lose hope!

[JayQ]

This is such an inspiring story. It gives me hope. I’m so attached with my chickens and I can relate to you completely. I’m in 2nd month of caring for my pullet, sweet Polly. She’s started having leg problems at 5 week old, brought to the vet and told it isn’t Mareks but really similar without the other symptoms like eyes, and unhealthy droppings. She eats a lot especially when I feed her by hands. I give her pain reliever for the nerves and continues vitamins, vitamin b-complex, scrambled egg a day etc.

 

[Jodi Locklin]

Hi guys!
Several months ago one of my white leghorn chicks got paralyzed and I'd like to tell her story. Maybe it will inspire somebody not to lose hope
*** Sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker.

I have a country house where we keep chicken. We don't live there, and it's 10min on foot from our apartment. So I go there twice a day to feed and take care of them. One day, at the end of February, I found one of my hens, 1.5 years old, lying in the nest with her egg near her and her legs totally paralyzed. I think she might be lying like that for a couple of hours. I took her to house and started the examination.

Her legs didn't move at all and were just straightened in front of her. They were very strained and I even noticed small convulsions. She couldn't stand obviously or keep her balance, nothing at all. Just laid on her side and looked at me with horror in her eyes (although the rest of chicks are very friendly and like when we pet them, this one hated being touched). She was totally fine in the morning, nothing unusual. I was 100% sure at that moment that it couldn't be any infection. Her comb was red, the eyes were normal. So it made me think that the problem was related to egg laying, a kind of a trauma. I offered her food but she refused, so I fed her a little against her will and gave her water using a plastic syringe. Placed her in a box and let her sleep through the night.

Next morning her condition was the same. She ate a little bit, but didn't drink, so I used the syringe again. She pooped normally. We don't have avian vets in our town, so I took her to a general practitioner. Of course he said nothing specific. Just told me it didn't look like any infection. Gave us pain killing + anti inflammatory drug and recommended to give her calcium for 2-3 days. I quote what he said: "With birds it is always fast. Wait a couple of days and you will see if she lives or dies." It wasn't fast though, read on.

For 3 days I gave her "Meloxicam" once a day. The dose was 5 times bigger than for a cat. So if it's 1 drop per kilogram for a cat, it will be 5 drops per kilo for a chick. At least that's what the vet said. Also I gave her calcium, 2mg twice a day. I bought it in a pharmacy, calcium liquid for human injections or something like that. Plus, I also gave her 5mg of glucose twice a day, because she didn't eat much. Generally, the chick looked miserable, stressed and scared. All this time she was lying in a cosy box in our country house, because it was cold outside. We tried to manually feed her and gave her water. During 3 or 4 days nothing changed and I took her to another vet. He again said nothing specific and kind of laughed that I care too much about a simple chicken. However, he prescribed Meloxicam again for 2 days + general antibiotic + some vitamin drops for immunity stimulation. No effect though.

After a week her condition didn't improve at all. She wasn't afraid of our arms anymore now that she saw that we didn't harm her. I took her home, to my apartment on the 3rd floor It was easier to take care of her. One more week passed, and then another one with no progress. The chick was still laying on her side with occasional slight convulsions. But her condition didn't get worse, it was just stuck. We didn't give her any more medication, we literally didn't know what to do. I Googled all the Internet and such symptoms turned out to be typical of Marek's disease. It was scary. But I couldn't fully believe it, as the chick was too old to have it. Usually chickens start displaying symptoms at a very early age. Only on one forum I found a very similar story, where a chick partially recovered after a month and it gave me hope!

I massaged her legs and back, tried to place her in different positions but there was no sensation in her legs at all. Fortunately, she didn't lay eggs! I came to the conclusion that she damaged a nerve when laying her egg. I started giving her calcium again, same dose. I gave it to her for around 7 days when she began to have more convulsions as if she were trying to move her legs. And we saw A LOT OF PROGRESS ON WEEK 4. Very slowly, she first started to roll to her belly and finally was able to sit like a chicken with her legs bent under her belly. Then she learned to sit on her bum with her legs straightened in front of her and sang us a lot
However, it wasn't funny at that moment, because her sitting position looked exactly like Marek disease paralysis if you Google it... Couple of days passed and she made attempts to stand up, shrugging, shaking and falling down on her side.

WEEK 5. One morning she laid an egg in the box where she was sleeping. The same day she made good progress with walking! Either it was an egg that did something or maybe it was just time for her to walk again. Till WEEK 6 she was already moving around our apartment, trying even to run after tasty food. She had bad coordination, problems with balance. She couldn't run fast or jump. Then she laid another egg and lost sense in her legs again! I immediately bought another bottle of Meloxicam. This time she felt bad for 2 days, but got up and started to walk again.

In total we kept her in our apartment for 3 months. She was too weak to place her back to her chicken family, you know how cruel they are to the weak. We got so attached to her! She was our pet now, our close friend and anti stress )) She behaved like a cat or dog: followed us, asked for food, sang us her chicken songs, allowed us to hug and pet her. You can imagine But it was time to get her back to the country house. For a couple of consecutive days I took her with me to the country and she spent a couple of hours with her family. They didn't welcome her much, but after a week she was doing pretty good.

It's almost 4 MONTHS now since she got sick, and she hasn't fully recovered. She stumbles a bit and still has problems with balance. But she runs and jumps on low objects. She lays eggs almost like she did before. We give extra food and tasty things, because anyways the rest of chicks don't let her eat peacefully together with them.

I don't know what her health condition will be in future, we hope for the best. But the fact is that CHICKEN CAN RECOVER FROM PARALYSIS. And it's not always Mareks!

Thank you for this bc this is exactly what my hen is doing also. I found her today near her nest the exact same way and I was getting no answers from anyone as to what I should do. Now I know thank u very much.