Possible wry neck has suddenly developed on old chicken

[Puddingtheamericana]

i have made a post about our chicken midnight before, her leg had stopped working and crumpled up and she couldn’t walk and then next thing you know she’s fine. she even looks dead and i honestly don’t know how she’s still alive.

anyways, this time around i open our coop grabbing some eggs, our chickens have started to lay again now that it’s getting warmer, and i see our chicken midnight curled up on the other side of the nesting area. chickens tend to sleep with their heads nuzzled in so i nudge her a bit and she somewhat uncurls herself but her neck is still lopsided and twisted. i pick her up and place her on the ground and she stumbles around a bit her neck noticeably twisted around. i did some research and something called wry neck came up. i’m not a professional or too experienced with chicken illnesses so i’m not sure for certain.

my research did say to give the chicken sources of vitamin e so i’ve been hand feeding midnight some ripped up pieces of dandelion greens, along with going out to the coop every now and then to supply her with some chicken feed and a dish of water, seeing as she is stuck in the nesting box section of the coop. i’ve closed off the nesting box form the other chickens and right now it’s like a temporary holding place for her so that the other chickens don’t peck her. emphasis on temporary im not keeping a sick chicken locked in a small dark container full of poop forever.

i have some photos, i don’t know if this will clear up or be the death of her, she is around 4 years old so she’s had a good run.

 

[azygous]

Four years is not old. Recently I treated a fourteen-year old hen for wry neck. Now, that is an old hen.

Wry neck is not life threatening on its own, but it can lead to starvation when the chicken can't find an efficient way to eat. Sometimes tube feeding is necessary if it goes on more than a few days.

You need to treat it with vitamin E oil capsules. Get them where they sell vitamins for humans. Get E 400iu. Give one capsule per day directly into her beak. Just pry open her beak and shove it inside.

Monitor her crop and if she hasn't eaten enough to fill her crop by evening, she may need to be hand fed. Give her scrambled egg after the E capsule. Hold her on your lap and straighten her head while you hold the egg under her beak so she can eat. Do this with water, too. The biggest danger is not the wry neck, but starvation and dehydration.