Wry neck in a chick

[Windus]

I came home tonight to find one of my 3 week old chicks with wry neck. I did not notice any issues with any of them before tonight. I am at a loss of what to do for this chick. They are being fed high quality chick crumbles.

Help!!

 

[CHlCK3N]

http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2014/04/preventing-and-treating-wry-neck-in.html#
This website should give a bit of information on how to treat it and preventing it in other chicks or adults in the future. But make sure to do full on research on this before starting to treat it. Many things may be left out in some articles with others containing enough information.
Chicks will get dehydrated and malnourished and could possibly pass if it's not treated swiftly enough.

 

[Folly's place]

Make sure that the mill date on your feed is recent; after about six weeks some vitamins will deteriorate. That includes vit E. If the feed is older, get a new bag, and meanwhile, try treating this one chick. Good luck! Mary PS If this chick lives, I'd not include her in the breeding group.

 

[Windus]

I went and bought new feed last night. I had bought medicated chick feed because they were out of the plain and in researching last night I read that using that feed can cause them not to absorb vitamins properly. So that food has been chucked and I have added vitamins to the water for the other chicks who so far seem fine. I got vitamin E into the affected chick last night and polyvisol in this morning and fed it by hand. It still seems strong so I will continue to treat and hope to pull it out of the condition.

 

[Folly's place]

Amprolium medicated chick starter isn't a problem! Hope your chick responds.
Several years ago I had one chick (out of fifty!) who had this problem, and as she got worse and worse, I euthanatized her and had her necropsied, because I was worried about possible Marek's disease. She had severe brain lesions from vit. E deficiency and wasn't going to recover. The feeling was that this one chick had a higher than normal need for vit. E, a genetic issue for her. That's why I mentioned not having your sick baby in your breeding group later. Your other chicks are doing well, it's just this one. So sorry! Mary

 

[Windus]

Amprolium medicated chick starter isn't a problem! Mary

It was mentioned on several sites that feeding medicated feed was an issue. Better safe than sorry for me so I chucked it out.

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

did the chick ever get better? My chick today suddenly came down with wry neck. Heading to vet in the morning.... I am real worried.

 

[Folly's place]

I hope she can recover. Mary

 

[Natanya]

did the chick ever get better? My chick today suddenly came down with wry neck. Heading to vet in the morning.... I am real worried.

I've had one silkie who wrynecked badly who I treated with vitamin E and aspirin, and she successfully recovered from the first bout after about 9 days of force feeding, but the condition returned with a vengeance with little warning one month later, and I ultimately decided to put her down after testing how well she could eat with support- not well at all. She had next to no appetite.

Be prepared if you treat your chicken for wryneck it is very likely to reoccur throughout the bird's life (and that chicken shouldn't ever be used for breeding, otherwise it may pass it's condition down to it's offspring). I decided I didn't have the resources to care for a chronically ill chicken, even though I loved that bird and was heartbroken that I had to put her down. Her quality of life simply wasn't good, I couldn't bear to make her suffer any longer by force feeding her when she was obviously ready to be done. I cried a lot.

Losses can be hard, but loosing birds is a fact of life that isn't going to go away any time soon. There's just too many things that can go wrong.

To help sooth the wound that loosing my baby Cottonee Chicken left I decided to look forward to the future and I placed an order for three new baby pullets earlier today at a local feed store. I've found looking forward to caring for new babies really helps take my mind off of the regret of loosing a baby chicken, and now I'm more emotionally prepared than ever to accept the loss of future chickens.

 

[Folly's place]

I'd look for a speedy recovery, or none at all. My chick from years ago was miserable, and likely had bad headaches, and needed to be gone. it's sad, but sometimes the best thing.
Mary