Hi all,
I am in need of some help/advice. I have two three week old silkie chicks with wry neck. I have never dealt with this before.
This issue developed 3 days ago and straight away I googled the issue and have come to the conclusion that it is wry neck – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is genetic so this is my current thinking (I am aware this symptom can be due to other causes but at this stage my money is on a genetic problem).
I have been feeding vitamin E and a little bit of selenium for the last three days by breaking open a capsule and dipping a mealworm into the vitamin E capsule oil and the chicks have taken this well – most of the time. I have also mixed some oil and selenium into the dry food but I don’t know how much of this they are really eating. I also fed some egg with shell yesterday.
Today (end of day 3) there is no improvement, in fact I feel things are worsening. Before, they could take food but as of this afternoon, I don’t feel they can.
So my main questions are:
Now that I don’t feel they can feed themselves, how do I feed the chicks? if I have to feed them manually how do I do that without drowning/choking them and what position do I put them in for feeding time?
In general, should I keep correcting their position or just letting them find a comfortable position even if it looks terrible?
How should I let them sleep? Currently, they are neck-upside down backed into the corner of the isolation cage that I have them in, do I need to intervene?
With a wry neck when should I expect to see improvement and what signs would indicate this?
At what stage do I give up? For their sake. And if I go down that road what do I do?
Sorry, this post is a little rushed – I’m just feeling very stressed and alone on this so any help would be so appreciated.
I am in need of some help/advice. I have two three week old silkie chicks with wry neck. I have never dealt with this before.
This issue developed 3 days ago and straight away I googled the issue and have come to the conclusion that it is wry neck – I wouldn’t be surprised if it is genetic so this is my current thinking (I am aware this symptom can be due to other causes but at this stage my money is on a genetic problem).
I have been feeding vitamin E and a little bit of selenium for the last three days by breaking open a capsule and dipping a mealworm into the vitamin E capsule oil and the chicks have taken this well – most of the time. I have also mixed some oil and selenium into the dry food but I don’t know how much of this they are really eating. I also fed some egg with shell yesterday.
Today (end of day 3) there is no improvement, in fact I feel things are worsening. Before, they could take food but as of this afternoon, I don’t feel they can.
So my main questions are:
Now that I don’t feel they can feed themselves, how do I feed the chicks? if I have to feed them manually how do I do that without drowning/choking them and what position do I put them in for feeding time?
In general, should I keep correcting their position or just letting them find a comfortable position even if it looks terrible?
How should I let them sleep? Currently, they are neck-upside down backed into the corner of the isolation cage that I have them in, do I need to intervene?
With a wry neck when should I expect to see improvement and what signs would indicate this?
At what stage do I give up? For their sake. And if I go down that road what do I do?
Sorry, this post is a little rushed – I’m just feeling very stressed and alone on this so any help would be so appreciated.
