Wobbley chick!! Marrek's disease(what's that?)

[bantychickenlove]

:/One of my chicks has a hard time walking around. all he does is wobbles and falls over. we did research on this subject and all of the people said that it was merricks disease but it says that that causes weakness and this chick is certainly not weak. he is small because he can not get to his food but he peeops all the time. this is the only thing wrong with him. my children and I love this chick and would hate to see it die from this apprently not so rare and deadly disease.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

how old is your chick?

 

[annek]

Here is a good article on mareks

http://www.shagbarkbantams.com/page9.htm

How old is your chick? Normally it won't show up until they are around 5 weeks. If your chick is small and not getting enough to eat I wouldn't suspect mareks. You need to separate her, you can give her a friendly buddy for company and make sure she gets enough to eat. If he is peeping all the time, there is a problem. It doesn't sound like mareks. Give us more background.

 

[bantychickenlove]

he is 6 days old. we have been giving him water and he sometimes takes food. he ate a few ants yesterday. this morning seems a little weaker.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

How is he doing? I agree with annek, Marek's usually shows up later...there could just be something wrong that you can't see, and if it's a birth defect, there may be nothing you can do...I have a less than thrifty chick right now that I am dealing with too, good luck to us both!

 

[randomperson]

I think that I am having the same problem. We got six chicks about a week ago. One of the chicks was wobbley and was not eating. It only drank when we dipped it,s beak in the water. It would sometimes fall and not be able to get up, and would occasionally move it,s head sideways and back. About three days after we got it, it died.

The rest of the chicks have been doing fine until today, when the two largest, an amaricana and a bantam, started to be less lively. They do not sand when they perch, and are leaning on the wall and on other chicks more often. Thankfully, they are still eating and drinking, but I am afraid they might get worse.

Could this be the same disease? We assumed that the first chick had some sort of birth defect or neurological problem, but that wouldn't be contagious.

Do you have any idea if what this might be? We are currently giving the chicks medicated water, because that seemed to have temporarily helped the first chick. You could try doing that, too.