I have a 15 month old stargazing hen who has not responded positively to vitamin therapy. I’m wondering if anyone has found any adaptive strategies to help a hen like mine.
Background:
Peanut Butter is a 15 month old, 3 pound, large fowl Barnevelder feed store/hatchery chick. She has struggled with issues- namely tremors and ataxia- since she was a chick. She seemed to outgrow the tremors, but continues to struggle with her balance and coordination.
The star gazing symptoms first began last fall. I didn’t know what I was seeing at the time. She would be her normal self all day and then as the chickens were going to bed she would look upwards for roosting spots and lose her balance or even topple over backwards. It progressed to where she needed to be lifted onto the roost every night.
Her symptoms flared in January during a bad cold snap. I found her sitting in the snow in the middle of the day staring at the sky- she seemed “stuck.” I brought her indoors to live for a few weeks. She also began laying eggs at this same time. Her condition slowly improved, but she never returned to her pre-laying “normal.”
Since January, PB’s symptoms have varied back and forth from severe to mild. Her symptoms seem to worsen under stress including extreme temperatures, the approach of a hostile hen or horny rooster, taking pills, and egg laying are all triggers. She’s been living in my garden since returning outside after her January episode. She had supervised visits with the flock, and slept in a plastic cat carrier in the coop (to keep her protected from both the other birds and her nighttime stargazing induced thrashing.
Last month we had a heatwave, and her symptoms flared. She was stargazing a lot, very little interest in eating or drinking, laying around, and she stopped laying. She’s been living indoors for about a month now. Her symptoms have improved some, and she’s just started laying again last week.
PB has been on vitamin therapy or oral dosages of Poultry Cell without any noticeable improvement. My goal at this point is to focus on helping manage the symptoms.
PB’s favorite thing in the whole world is to be picked up and held. The way I hold her, her legs are pushed back out behind her. She NEVER stargazes when I hold her.
How I hold/carry PB.
In the evening I can hold her and she’ll fall asleep contentedly in my arms. But as soon as I place her in her bed, she stargazes aggressively and flops around. (When the stargazing is at its worst, her feet push forward and cause her body to flop backwards). A couple times I’ve wrapped her in a towel, burrito style, with her legs poking out the back- mimicking (sort of) how I carry her. This stops her stargazing! The problem is that I don’t want to wrap her too tightly (it goes over her wings) so she sometimes gets a leg free and then stargazes again. If I wrap her tightly, I worry that she could overheat. I also don’t like the idea of her being trapped.
Peanut butter wrapped up like a burrito and not star gazing.
I got to wondering… does something exist that could serve this same function in a safer/more comfortable way? Or has anyone created something similar to this this burrito wrap that is helpful?
I’ve also found that a slight weight on the back of her head can help. If I roll up a hand towel or small blanket and place behind/on top of her head, this helps the stargazing. I call it her stargazing scarf. It’s helpful, but falls off easily. I’m experimenting with a better system.
If you have any ideas for physical adaptations to help PB, I’d love to hear about them.
Background:
Peanut Butter is a 15 month old, 3 pound, large fowl Barnevelder feed store/hatchery chick. She has struggled with issues- namely tremors and ataxia- since she was a chick. She seemed to outgrow the tremors, but continues to struggle with her balance and coordination.
The star gazing symptoms first began last fall. I didn’t know what I was seeing at the time. She would be her normal self all day and then as the chickens were going to bed she would look upwards for roosting spots and lose her balance or even topple over backwards. It progressed to where she needed to be lifted onto the roost every night.
Her symptoms flared in January during a bad cold snap. I found her sitting in the snow in the middle of the day staring at the sky- she seemed “stuck.” I brought her indoors to live for a few weeks. She also began laying eggs at this same time. Her condition slowly improved, but she never returned to her pre-laying “normal.”
Since January, PB’s symptoms have varied back and forth from severe to mild. Her symptoms seem to worsen under stress including extreme temperatures, the approach of a hostile hen or horny rooster, taking pills, and egg laying are all triggers. She’s been living in my garden since returning outside after her January episode. She had supervised visits with the flock, and slept in a plastic cat carrier in the coop (to keep her protected from both the other birds and her nighttime stargazing induced thrashing.
Last month we had a heatwave, and her symptoms flared. She was stargazing a lot, very little interest in eating or drinking, laying around, and she stopped laying. She’s been living indoors for about a month now. Her symptoms have improved some, and she’s just started laying again last week.
PB has been on vitamin therapy or oral dosages of Poultry Cell without any noticeable improvement. My goal at this point is to focus on helping manage the symptoms.
PB’s favorite thing in the whole world is to be picked up and held. The way I hold her, her legs are pushed back out behind her. She NEVER stargazes when I hold her.
How I hold/carry PB.
In the evening I can hold her and she’ll fall asleep contentedly in my arms. But as soon as I place her in her bed, she stargazes aggressively and flops around. (When the stargazing is at its worst, her feet push forward and cause her body to flop backwards). A couple times I’ve wrapped her in a towel, burrito style, with her legs poking out the back- mimicking (sort of) how I carry her. This stops her stargazing! The problem is that I don’t want to wrap her too tightly (it goes over her wings) so she sometimes gets a leg free and then stargazes again. If I wrap her tightly, I worry that she could overheat. I also don’t like the idea of her being trapped.
Peanut butter wrapped up like a burrito and not star gazing.
I got to wondering… does something exist that could serve this same function in a safer/more comfortable way? Or has anyone created something similar to this this burrito wrap that is helpful?
I’ve also found that a slight weight on the back of her head can help. If I roll up a hand towel or small blanket and place behind/on top of her head, this helps the stargazing. I call it her stargazing scarf. It’s helpful, but falls off easily. I’m experimenting with a better system.
If you have any ideas for physical adaptations to help PB, I’d love to hear about them.
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