Somersaulting Chick

[corliss]

I have six chicks of different breeds that are a little over a week old today. The RIR had what might have been pasty butt but I soaked her bottom yesterday and she has been pooping easily since. Today, though, she is running backwards and looks to be rubbing her face on the ground. When she does it with enough force, she sommersaults over backwards. She is eating and drinking and moving around normally but occasionally she is wedging herself between the brooder and a small play toy (never did this before). Does anyone have any experience with this? For what it's worth, her (his?) wing feathers are the least developed among the chicks and she is considerably smaller.

Thanks for any help you could give.

 

[easttxchick]

It sounds like it could be wry neck. It can be treated pretty successfully with Vitamin E, PolyViSol(without iron) and Selenium. I'm not sure of the dosing, but I'm sure it can be found on here if you do a search for treatment of wry neck.
Good luck to you and your bird.

 

[corliss]

Now my chick is getting much worse, not eating and backing up rapidly all over the cage. I gave her a full vitamin e capsule and two drops of baby vitamins without iron. From what I read, it takes a couple of days for a chick to recuperate, if they are going to. In the meantime, do the vitamins provide enough nutrition since they aren't eating?

 

[easttxchick]

If you can, maybe mix the vitamins in with some yogurt or mashed boiled egg and chick start to try to encourage it to eat-you may have to strongly encourage the baby to eat. They will get worse before they get better(my sister raises Silkies and sadly, they are prone to wry neck). She has had 3 in the last few months with it and all have recovered with Vitamin therapy.