Silkie with wry neck best vitamin solution?

[Zachderky]

She comes outside each day and while she does move from place to place, in general there is not much movement inbetween, she just goes from one place to another and usually sits in one place for 30 mins or so before slowly making her way to another, for the wry neck itself I've noticed over the past days it seems less intense, as previously she would lose balance very easily and fall over, and/or her head would be upside down at times, while now and the past few days she instead is just moving from one place to another, slowly, not really doing much, I do notice she still has some problems with her head though, I can see the eyes close and go back open again frequently, meaning she's probably fighting it constantly..also her "aim" is a little bit off when she tries to peck food, which makes sense.
the only time I see the insane neck problems where she'll "fall asleep" and head upside down is when I pick her up, which I have to do to get the vitamins in her, for general drinking/eating I see her drink often enough, eating seems rare. I put the food box next to her multiple times today to see if she'd eat and it didn't really happen, when I pulled out the dried mealworms (they both always get so excited over that stuff, 53% crude potein 30% crude fat) she did immediately start eating them. could almost pour the vitamin e liquid on it and get her to consume it that way, lol, although the syringe hasn't been that hard to administer, main concern is making her so stressed with having to pick her up.

Overall not sure about the status currently, only supplying one vitamin E capsule daily, by making hole in capsule and trying to suck as much of the juice into a syringe as possible, never get 100% of the juice obviously, actual amount is probably somewhere at 70-80%, due to her rarely eating and not having any selenium intake (tried again today, other chicken actually touched it a bit and ate very little of it, but could probably have made her eat all of it, but chicken that actually needs to eat it doesn't touch it at all, and even by force I can't see this working) I'm scared of supplementing more vitamins, yesterday I was actually waiting for today to look out for any differences, but it has been mostly the same, thinking about opening up 2 pills at once tomorrow and supplementing that in one go, it will be more than one capsule but also won't be 2, since I'm losing some of the juice.

 

[Zachderky]

Do you know what has caused wry neck? Like a vitamin deficiency, botulism, a neurological problem, or possibly even mareks?

Going with vitamin deficiency as it makes a lot of sense, I checked for marek's and she hasn't shown any symptoms other than the wry neck, also no traces of a head trauma.

 

[Zachderky]

What do you feed her?

A combination of corn, wheat, dari, peas, sorghum (its a mix of food suitable for chickens that I buy from the store)
I also give them dried mealworms (I have one other silkie that is currently perfectly healthy) they walk freely outside all day every day in a pretty big yard, but when the weather is bad and they can't go hunting worms in the yard I supply them some dried mealworms.

 

[Zachderky]

Those will work just fine
You can give your girl 1-2 scrambled eggs - it won't hurt her. You just need a small amount of Selenium for the uptake of E.
Eggs are a good source of protein and other nutrients as well.

I do recommend that you try to get some B vitamins into her as well. B1 is important. If those are not available as a supplement, you can give a little Beef Liver or crushed nuts.
Sometimes it's hard to find exactly what everyone recommends, you just have to think outside the box. Remember everything in moderation.

So even though I ordered yesterday within the time limit, they say because of Black Friday, deliveries can have a delay and they give a tracking number as soon as it's sent, I haven't received one by now and it's 9AM which basically means it's not going to arrive today, can I use any of the products I listed for today?

 

[Shadrach]

This is a link to the thread I started describing the problem.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hen-with-suspected-neurological-damage.1282195/
The vitamin B complex I have is a liquid. I puncture the Wheat Germ capsules and put the oil with the vitamins into a syringe. It's quick and I'm sure she gets the correct dose.
She can and does eat by herself and apart from the backwards waliking and head weaving appears quite normal.

 

[Shadrach]

Small update for today: Getting the capsule in was not easy, she'd constantly fall asleep and wake up as I was trying to open her beak, on top of that she was also moving her head around every time I tried to open it, essentially fighting it off, although she did not attack me. Eventually I found a good way to open the beak up, (I was being very gentle as I did not want to hurt her) then I had another problem which was that she would have her tongue all the way up on the same height as the top part of her beak, basically making it Impossible for me to put the capsule in there, luckily eventually I was able to open her beak with her tongue in normal position and put the capsule in there, actually just checked a force feeding video again and it looks exactly the same as what I did, except I probably took like 10 times longer, hoping it goes easier tonight.

I also scrambled up 2 eggs and tried to get her to eat it by putting it close with her (didn't try to force feed it as just the capsule alone was a lengthy process) she didn't touch it and even one hour later it s looks like it's untouched, still giving her more time and hoping she'll eventually start eating it, if not I guess I'm going to try and force feed that to her too, yesterday evening she seemed like she had more energy and was much more compliant, so force feeding the scrambled eggs in a scenario as such does not sound that difficult, it's possible she would even get the message if I just hold them very close to the beak, I suppose only time will tell.




Sucks to hear, at least you've noticed it becoming more frequent and you're trying to find treatment, I hope it works out for you, you are definitely asking the right people.

Your problems getting the hen to swallow the capsule Is why I use a syringe. You can suck out the vitamin E liquid from the capsule and that might make administering by syringe easier.
I've squeezed scarmbled egg through a syringe before.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

You need to get her well hydrated before you try to get any food into her.
Hopefully she will start to recover.

 

[Zachderky]

Your problems getting the hen to swallow the capsule Is why I use a syringe. You can suck out the vitamin E liquid from the capsule and that might make administering by syringe easier.
I've squeezed scarmbled egg through a syringe before.

Most of the trouble was with opening the beak and keeping it open, so even if I would do it with a syringe I feel like it would be nearly the same, I guess you could say that with a syringe you can open the beak and put the syringe slightly into the beak so closing it is not an option for her, but it was actually really difficult since she would completely move her head from left to right, there was also the issue with the tongue being all the way at the top, all in all I would probably agree with you that syringe would be better (I think it could vary by how tame your chicken is, too) but not by much. I feel like directly giving the capsules would still be the better choice in my case, assuming it gets easier over time (I do believe I learned a bit more from today's experience and the next few feeds will go much more fluently)

Regarding the scrambled eggs through syringe, that sounds kinda weird to me, would be nice if you could elaborate on how you pulled this off.

Currently it's been about 3 hours since I put the scrambled eggs with her and she has yet to touch them, even when put near her she won't touch it, shitty weather (rain,winds) along with short days also really don't help, I feel like I barely have time to try anything every day, today I actually had to wait because when I opened the coop she was sitting properly as if she were laying an egg, turned out she wasn't and it was probably because outside was too cold, I have about 2 hours left today before it's dark again.

She most likely wont be consuming those scrambled eggs today, which makes me wonder if I should even be giving another capsule, the selenium is supposed to help absorb the Vitamin E, without it, I fear it could be too strong.

You need to get her well hydrated before you try to get any food into her.
Hopefully she will start to recover.

She has actually managed to eat/drink by herself every day for the past few days, I only aid in putting her food/water close to her each time. Although today seems like she's pretty weak, not moving a lot, but I've also not seen her neck spaz out like it sometimes would before, it only happened when I picked her up which I believe is stress related.

 

[Shadrach]

I put the scrambled egg in a blender.
I do empathise with your problems. Trying to care for a sick chickens is time consuming and stressful. I've done quite a lot of it over the years, usually for injuries rather than sickness. There comes a point when you have to decide whether you and the chickens are making any real progress and act accordingly. It's a terrible decsion to have to make.
My rough guide now with injured chickens is if they won't eat solids after three days of care they are probably not going to make it. I've had a couple die on my bed having spent a couple of weeks trying to pull them through. It's just plain heartbreaking and I end up wondering if I have just prolonged their suffering.

 

[Zachderky]

I put the scrambled egg in a blender.
I do empathise with your problems. Trying to care for a sick chickens is time consuming and stressful. I've done quite a lot of it over the years, usually for injuries rather than sickness. There comes a point when you have to decide whether you and the chickens are making any real progress and act accordingly. It's a terrible decsion to have to make.
My rough guide now with injured chickens is if they won't eat solids after three days of care they are probably not going to make it. I've had a couple die on my bed having spent a couple of weeks trying to pull them through. It's just plain heartbreaking and I end up wondering if I have just prolonged their suffering.

In her current state, I believe force feeding anything would be really difficult, today she seems to not be doing a whole lot and she's mostly just sitting quietly in one place, moving every once in a while to a new place to sit at.

I think I definitely won't do another capsule today and hope she'll have a little more energy tomorrow, if not I'll try other methods such as syringing scrambled eggs (this would be very hard to impossible to feed in her current state)
Mostly coming to this conclusion also because yesterday evening she actually seemed to have energy, was moving around slowly and even got back into her coop (up the stairs) all by herself, while other days I would have to pick her up and put her in. Hoping I'll see that again later today (probably wont) or tomorrow.