Good Afternoon all,
I found this thread last night and joined the group on the spot. From doing research here and other places on bing, I'm sure we have a young pullet who has wry neck and it's pretty advanced too. I chalk it up to not knowing a darn thing about chickens. I'm sorry!
We purchased her (she's a Rhode Island Red) as a day old chick on 3/25 this year so she's young. She was the same as all the other girls (10 RIRs and 2 Dominiques) but we lost two to unknown causes and when the dog knocked the cage off the counter, we thought she had a broken leg and she did. We put a splint on it. That was probably a little before we bought the second group (Americaunas and Buff Orphingtons) on 4/17 and put that first group out in the chicken coop. She did fine with the little ones and they seemed to cuddle up to her like a momma. Soon though, she wasn't standing up at all anymore, even on the one leg and just laying in the cage. With the weather warmed up here on the desert, we put the little ones out in the hen house and left her inside with us. That's when we noticed the neck twisting. She pushes her head down to her breast on the left side of her body and then turns her head to the right to right angles to her body.
From what I had read on this thread, it's a vitamin deficiency but we didn't read far enough to find solutions to it and were thinking it would just get better if we hand fed her and gave her water every few hours. It didn't get better but she was still eating. Last night she seemed no better, actually a little worse because the wing she'd been laying on (her right one) wasn't laying down right anymore and I had had to bathe her twice to get all the poop off her from flopping around in it.
We're pretty sure it's wry neck because of some of the reading. 1) it's obviously not contagious because no one else has any other symptoms. 2) all the symptoms of wry neck are there and were there had we noticed them. The one foot behind the other, the tremors and floppy neck.
Today we got the poly vi sol (non-iron), vitamin E, Pedialyte, selenium and only were missing the medicated chick feed. She's been eating up the regular chick feed and crumbles. She seems to really eat up that stuff and not need it watered down to mud. I switched out water for the Pedialyte (non flavored, non colored) and mixed the E and the poly vi sol into the crumbles with a bit of the selenium. She's eaten twice now and drank as much too. We're feeding her about every other hour during the day. In order to feed her we have to hold her with two hands holding her wings to her body and keep her legs from kicking out. I sort of hold her as if she was standing, more normal position and when she sees the feed she readily pecks it over and over. I give her water first and she generally dips her beak in and lifts her head a dozen or more times before I offer the food. Then again to the water and then back to resting. She lays on her right side quietly at first but in an hour she might wiggle a little and chirp. We generally are feeding her every time she starts moving and chirping. Even to the point of getting up during the night to feed her too.
From what I can gather on this thread it will take at least several months to get her back to normal and she may stay in the house all summer till she can go out with the other girls. Her size is smaller than the ones we got on 4/17 and she's not even half the size of her siblings born 3/24.. We've been calling her Gimpy but.. I think Cinnamon might be a better name because she's spicy and a fighter.
Any other ideas are welcome.
