Sudden paralysis

[easouth]

What would cause sudden paralysis in a 4 month old chicken? She was fine yesterday, but found her laying on her side in the coop this morning. She is eating and drinking with shallow containers in front of her. Do I have to worry about my remaining girls

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Welcome To BYC

Where are you located in the world?
What do you feed including treats?
What breed is she?
Was she vaccinated for Marek's?
How many birds in how much space and do you have a cockerel?

If you have photos of your pullet and her poop those may help.

Sudden paralysis in such a young birds generally makes me think of Marek's disease. But it's always good to do a bit more investigating. Look her over for lice/mites, make sure she has no injury/bruising that may be causing her condition and consider if she ate anything that was dead/moldy or toxic.

General care would be to offer vitamin therapy of Vitamin E and B-Complex to see if there's improvement. With more information we may be able to give better suggestions.

I would start with 400IU Vitamin E and 1/4 tablet B-Complex daily.

 

[easouth]

Welcome To BYC

Where are you located in the world?
What do you feed including treats?
What breed is she?
Was she vaccinated for Marek's?
How many birds in how much space and do you have a cockerel?

If you have photos of your pullet and her poop those may help.

Sudden paralysis in such a young birds generally makes me think of Marek's disease. But it's always good to do a bit more investigating. Look her over for lice/mites, make sure she has no injury/bruising that may be causing her condition and consider if she ate anything that was dead/moldy or toxic.

General care would be to offer vitamin therapy of Vitamin E and B-Complex to see if there's improvement. With more information we may be able to give better suggestions.

I would start with 400IU Vitamin E and 1/4 tablet B-Complex daily.

Thanks for responding. I am in Maryland. My sick girl is an EE. I have 18 chickens in my coop currently. Coop is approx. 10 x 12. Run is about 12 x 14, but this chicken Has only had access to the run for about 2 weeks, as we are encountering integration issues. I have six 9 month old hens, not vaccinated. My sick girl is from a group of "coop ready" pullets that I purchased locally, not vaccinated and all came down with severe coccidosis about 1.5 weeks after bringing them home and putting them in my basement. They have been out in my coop since mid Nov, but we had to put up a temporary wall of hardware cloth to split the coop, as my big girls were attacking. About 2 weeks ago, be put our 4 month old girls on the big side of the coop that has access to our run and integrated them with chick group #3, who are 3 months old and are vaccinated. I do have one rooster on the 3 month old group, but he is my only one. All of my younger chickens are on medicated grower feed from Southern States. They also get a bit of scratch grains daily. I have given them bread perhaps 5 days ago .. no obvious signs of mold, but there could have been some. Not sure if my sick girl ate any of the bread, as she is timid and I do not know if she is venturing out of the coop. I purchased Vitamin b12 (rooster booster), I have nutri-drench, an also vitamin/electrolyte. Will that suffice, or do I need to puchase something different. If it is Marecks, how soon can I expect additional sick chickens? Also, I had chickens for 4 years with no issues. Hubby forgot to latch the coop door early last year and we lost our entire flock to a fox. I've had no issues with my initial replacement chicks, now 9 months old. My troubles all seemed to start with the purchase of my 4 week old started pullets in October. Reputable breeder, but as mentioned we had a coccidosis outbreak shortly thereafter. If it is Mareks, do you think it could have come from this breeder?

 

[easouth]

Welcome To BYC

Where are you located in the world?
What do you feed including treats?
What breed is she?
Was she vaccinated for Marek's?
How many birds in how much space and do you have a cockerel?

If you have photos of your pullet and her poop those may help.

Sudden paralysis in such a young birds generally makes me think of Marek's disease. But it's always good to do a bit more investigating. Look her over for lice/mites, make sure she has no injury/bruising that may be causing her condition and consider if she ate anything that was dead/moldy or toxic.

General care would be to offer vitamin therapy of Vitamin E and B-Complex to see if there's improvement. With more information we may be able to give better suggestions.

I would start with 400IU Vitamin E and 1/4 tablet B-Complex daily.

 

[easouth]

Sorry for the multiple replies. No sign of injury or mites. Her feet were quite cold when we brought her in. She only pooped twice since we brought her in the house around 11 am yesterday. No idea what her first bm looked like, since hubby cleaned it up, but it smelled awful. Her second bm looked normal and did not smell.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I would make sure she's getting B2 (Riboflavin).

Integration of different groups can be stressful, so the faster you can give them all more room it would be good. I'm sure you have multiple feed stations so everyone is able to eat without being bullied from food.

Marek's is fairly common and both vaccinated and unvaccinated birds can have infection from the virus. Hard to know if this is the cause of her decline. Sometimes you may only have one bird within a flock that becomes symptomatic. If you have another that shows the same symptoms then testing would give you some answers.

 

[easouth]

I would make sure she's getting B2 (Riboflavin).

Integration of different groups can be stressful, so the faster you can give them all more room it would be good. I'm sure you have multiple feed stations so everyone is able to eat without being bullied from food.

Marek's is fairly common and both vaccinated and unvaccinated birds can have infection from the virus. Hard to know if this is the cause of her decline. Sometimes you may only have one bird within a flock that becomes symptomatic. If you have another that shows the same symptoms then testing would give you some answers.

 

[easouth]

Happy to report that my girl stood up on her own this afternoon. She's still a bit unsteady, but I can't believe how quickly she turned around. She is getting up and eating and drinking, and of course pooping. Will try to post a pic. In the morning. Can I assume that it is not Mareks because of his quick recovery.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Glad to hear she's improving!
It would be hard to know if she was injured, deficient or if something like Marek's is at play.
Some birds with Marek's can recover fairly quickly with supportive care. Hopefully this is injury and she will continue to improve and have no further problems.

I look forward to the photos.

 

[easouth]

So here is my girl Hera. Quite the improvement considering he could not even keep herself upright while laying down this time yesterday. I am now anxious to get her out of my house, as she is a little poop machine. I'm worried about the shock of the cold at this point, so will likely keep her in for a few more days. Then a few days out in the garage, so it's more convenient to keep an eye on her. When she appears fully recovered , do you think I will have an issue reintegrating her to her flock? She was pretty low in the pecking order to begin with. Worst case scenario , I'll keep her in the dog kennel when I put her back out in the coop. I don't really want to, since I still need to integrate her flock with my 6 big girls, who are viscous..especially my 2 new Hampshire ladies. We are building a new coop as soon as the ground thaws, but only plan on removing my 4 bbs ameraucana and my bcm, so hoping to still integrate the others.