Sick Baby Chick

[mama hen]

I just looked in on my 3 week old babies and my Mille de Fleur is doing this strange neck twisting thing. She seems very disoriented. I seperated her and am giving her water with a dropper. What could cause this and what else can I do for her? I checked on her earlier this evening and she seemed just fine.

 

[Noobchick]

May be a vitamin E deficiency. It's called "crazy chick disease". Weird name, but pretty apt. Some Poly-Vi-Sol baby vitamins WITHOUT iron will help, or Nutri-Drench. I haven't used the baby vitamins in a while so I don't remembed dosage off the top of my head- a search on this site will help with that.

Dosage for Nutri-Drench is printed on the bottle.

You could also get vitamin E gelcaps from the drug store. 400IU strength. Moisten some of her food with water, then pierce the cap and squeeze the liquid out. Mix it up and give it to her. Do that twice a day. It' could take a few days to show improvement, so don't worry too much if you don't see a sudden improvement.

A search for "crazy chick disease" on this site should give you more info too. Good luck.

 

[mama hen]

I was able to hand feed her last night a mixture of yogurt and feed. I also found some save a chick I had laying around and gave her a bunch of that with a dropper. I didn't expect her to make it through the night. This morning hand fed her some more and she ate and drank alot. The head twisty thing has not gotten any better but she is bright eye'd and not acting ill. She is not hunched down or fluffing her feathers out or sleeping alot. She's been pecking around as best she can and even trying to fly out of laundry basket I have her in. I left for the day with some chick feed scattered on the floor and some more save a chick water. I'll pick up some vitamens today and try that. Thank you for the advice. I had never heard of crazy chick disease.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I agree with Noobchick in that it may be a vitamin deficiency- as to which vitamin, I don't know:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/218/vitamin-e-deficiency
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

Wry neck can be caused by a vitamin deficiency, infection, or injury from what I have read. In a three week old, it is most likely vitamin deficiency in my opinion. Many people give the poly vi sol without iron, selenium, and vit E to treat it- I have no experience with it, but here:

Here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/97121/lets-talk-wry-neck-crook-neck

I know that the chick crumbles have vitamins, but strangely there have been so many posts where the little ones are responding to human baby vitamins - maybe it isn't being absorbed by the chicks properly?