sickly chicken

[johnnalei]

I have a 4-5 month old silkie hen that is not doing well. She holds her head/neck to one side and seems a bit disoriented. I picked her up (she didn't try run because she's sick) and looked for any external injuries. I didn't see anything. I moved her neck gently to the other side and it didn't seem to cause her pain. I also looked for parasites and checked if there was an egg in her abdomen, but nothing. She did have some white poo residue on her feathers around her vent, but not much. She did seem a bit thin, but I saw her peck at some grass just recently. I think it's been a few days where she seems a little off, but today it's much worse. Any idea what's wrong? Could it be contagious? Thanks for your help!

 

[tigerrrrrrrlilly]

I had a similar case with my silkie. I believe it was wry neck aka stargazing. You can give him a shot of B12 and vitamins in his water. I did not have B12 shot available so I bought liquid B complex from walmart and gave him a dropper full in a bowl of water for 3 days. I confined him until he drank most of the B vitamin mixture then let him out where he could drink water with poultry vitamins with the other chickens. He was fine by the second day, I continued for a 3rd day just in case. He has had no problems since then. Good luck!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Do a search on this board for wry neck/crookneck if you want - it has been talked about quite a bit:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/se...www.backyardchickens.com/forum/index.php#1238

It can be from a head injury too:

this website shows pictures of the silkie skull (GRAPHIC): with hole

http://www.browneggblueegg.com/Article/HoleInHead.html

Make sure that your silkies aren't getting bullied and attacked.