Wry neck...Treat or euthanize?? UPDATED with GREAT results!!

[ArnoldoOfferman]

Goliath modeling his neck brace.

OK… I’m very happy to see that somebody did this… We have a silky who has a really bad case. She can barely keep her head up, and we have to hold her neck up so she can eat. Sometimes she can snap out of it and she eats and drinks on her own, but this first week has been very rough.

I consider doing this… How did it work for you? Is there any chance of actually hurting her muscles doing this?

 

[coopcarter]

We have one lucky Black Australorp that survived wry neck thanks to all the input from friends on
this BYC site!

We caught it early, did the research, started treatments:

Poly visol once a day, vit E once a day, some pedialyte in the water, and scrambled eggs, yogurt as treats.
We did this for about three weeks, tapering off during week three. When she was having a bad moment, I'd
gently uncurl her neck and hold it up for a moment or two which seemed like it helped a little bit.

I did band her leg with a twisty tie so I could tell her from the other two Australorps. Left her with the others
since it seemed that any increase in stress would set her off. One suggestion was to give the vit E with Selenium
but by the time I found it and bought it the capsules were not in liquid form so never did use any of it.

Give it a try. Be warned you wear as much of the poly visol and vet E as the bird gets, if not more!

 

[coopcarter]

We have one lucky Black Australorp that survived wry neck thanks to all the input from friends on
this BYC site!

We caught it early, did the research, started treatments:

Poly visol once a day, vit E once a day, some pedialyte in the water, and scrambled eggs, yogurt as treats.
We did this for about three weeks, tapering off during week three. When she was having a bad moment, I'd
gently uncurl her neck and hold it up for a moment or two which seemed like it helped a little bit.

I did band her leg with a twisty tie so I could tell her from the other two Australorps. Left her with the others
since it seemed that any increase in stress would set her off. One suggestion was to give the vit E with Selenium
but by the time I found it and bought it the capsules were not in liquid form so never did use any of it.

Give it a try. Be warned you wear as much of the poly visol and vet E as the bird gets, if not more!

 

[coopcarter]

Did you mix the polyvisol and vitamin e with water or just squirt it down her throat? We have a 6 week old Australorp with wry neck. She and her 5 sisters are our first chickens so we didn't know what was wrong when she first started showing symptoms. I'm 99% sure after all the research that it's wry neck. We put her in a box by herself right next to her sisters in case whatever she had was contagious but close enough to not make her feel alone. After vitamins and electrolytes she is improving and is now back in the dog crate with her sisters. I've also been treating her with Ivermectin paste because I was told the vitamin deficiency is often from parasites. I was told to give her a small pea size dose of Ivermectin daily for 12 days but am concerned she isn't getting very much. I try to hold her beak open and put in on her tongue but she ends up shaking it out of her mouth. Does anyone have advice?

 

[red horse ranch]

Did you mix the polyvisol and vitamin e with water or just squirt it down her throat? We have a 6 week old Australorp with wry neck. She and her 5 sisters are our first chickens so we didn't know what was wrong when she first started showing symptoms. I'm 99% sure after all the research that it's wry neck. We put her in a box by herself right next to her sisters in case whatever she had was contagious but close enough to not make her feel alone. After vitamins and electrolytes she is improving and is now back in the dog crate with her sisters. I've also been treating her with Ivermectin paste because I was told the vitamin deficiency is often from parasites. I was told to give her a small pea size dose of Ivermectin daily for 12 days but am concerned she isn't getting very much. I try to hold her beak open and put in on her tongue but she ends up shaking it out of her mouth. Does anyone have advice?

I find it hard to imagine a 6 week old chick having parasites since her entire short life has been inside a dog crate with sisters the same age. So my opinion is that the Ivermectin is treating something that may not even exist. If she was an older free ranging bird I can see that parasites would be a possibility. But not at her age.

I am glad to hear that your chick is improving.


For @ArnoldoOfferman I believe in the the vitamin E now since it appears that I may have saved a young rooster this time. 3 weeks ago I picked up my 1 month old Faverolle and his head immediately flipped upside down. Since I've lost 4 other roosters over the years to wry neck I knew immediately what it was. I started him on Vitamin E and Broiler Booster in the water in his one quart water bottle. Now after almost 3 weeks I see no symptoms at all. I will keeping giving him this mixture for at least another week. But if I see a return of symptoms I will resume the vitamins.

I appreciate all the helpful information that is available from my chicken friends on BYC!

 

[Helen_Jayne]

Hi !
I purchased my first ten chicks this past June 2014. one of my Rhode Island Reds, kept putting his head on the ground to one side.
it was having trouble eating and drinking, so I separated it to another box, gave him alittleTLC, yogurt etc. He seemed to grow at the same rate as the other chicks, but his head kept bent to the right and kept twisting sideways and getting caught beside hi foot.
His knees would bend out to the sides when he walked......well..he turned out to be a rooster, and is now 6 1/2 months old !
He was such a fighter that I didn't have the heart to euthanize him....maybe I'm just a softy, but he's God's creation and just a
"special-needs" boy !...he loves his breakfast of sratch, kale and yogurt !

Are you saying he's still got wry neck but living ok with it?

 

[Helen_Jayne]

Hi, I just wanted to add to this and thank everyone for posting the information as I read almost all of the thread and it helped so much. I have a silkie who came down with wry neck 3 weeks ago at about 5 weeks old. I treated her with the information here, feeding scrambled egg with vitamin E and B complex. To start I had to blend the egg as she wasn't able to eat well at all and wrap her in a towel to feed her. She got a lot better after a week but I made the stupid mistake of letting my little stepson have her in his bedroom (where she'd been kept) while he was with us for half term. I forgot a little boy's version of 'quiet' is different to my own! Within 24 she was right back to where I started, maybe even worse with her head tucked right under her legs.
I started again and today she looks (almost) normal although I will continue to keep her separate and treat her for some time yet as I think else she could go backwards again. My biggest tip is avoid all stress, keep them in a quiet room (I played classical music on radio!). Be careful with water, I put it in the egg for a long time as when she tried to drink I found she was getting it in her lungs and I had to hang her upside-down to drain her lungs (not very nice). Just make sure you wet everything really well and start offering water as soon as they're able to control their head enough.
I also put bach rescue remedy in the water and used belladonna homeopathic medicine for the jerky spasms. The treatment has taken 3 weeks to get this far and quite honestly it takes dedication - no one else could feed her because she would get upset about anyone else being around after being used to my voice. I'm home most of the time otherwise it would have been impossible.
I'd be glad to help anyone else in this situation as I'm pretty proud of where I've got with this! It certainly took a lot of work and research but this site and others helped a lot.
I think this will be my little house chicken as although she's improved I get the feeling she will be a special needs chicken all her life.

This was the video which helped with how to feed her, thank God for the internet.

 

[Noellereagan]

Hi, I just wanted to add to this and thank everyone for posting the information as I read almost all of the thread and it helped so much. I have a silkie who came down with wry neck 3 weeks ago at about 5 weeks old. I treated her with the information here, feeding scrambled egg with vitamin E and B complex. To start I had to blend the egg as she wasn't able to eat well at all and wrap her in a towel to feed her. She got a lot better after a week but I made the stupid mistake of letting my little stepson have her in his bedroom (where she'd been kept) while he was with us for half term. I forgot a little boy's version of 'quiet' is different to my own! Within 24 she was right back to where I started, maybe even worse with her head tucked right under her legs.
I started again and today she looks (almost) normal although I will continue to keep her separate and treat her for some time yet as I think else she could go backwards again. My biggest tip is avoid all stress, keep them in a quiet room (I played classical music on radio!). Be careful with water, I put it in the egg for a long time as when she tried to drink I found she was getting it in her lungs and I had to hang her upside-down to drain her lungs (not very nice). Just make sure you wet everything really well and start offering water as soon as they're able to control their head enough.
I also put bach rescue remedy in the water and used belladonna homeopathic medicine for the jerky spasms. The treatment has taken 3 weeks to get this far and quite honestly it takes dedication - no one else could feed her because she would get upset about anyone else being around after being used to my voice. I'm home most of the time otherwise it would have been impossible.
I'd be glad to help anyone else in this situation as I'm pretty proud of where I've got with this! It certainly took a lot of work and research but this site and others helped a lot.
I think this will be my little house chicken as although she's improved I get the feeling she will be a special needs chicken all her life.

This was the video which helped with how to feed her, thank God for the internet.

I’m going through the EXACT same thing. I thought stress and noise exasperated the symptoms. Now, after you said it- I’m sure of it. Fingers crossed. I am really attached to big (my little wry neck silkie).

 

[Helen_Jayne]

Since I wrote this the silkie is a normal bird which free ranges in my yard and lays an egg every day so it was worth the work! We love her particularly because she's 'special'.

 

[Noellereagan]

Since I wrote this the silkie is a normal bird which free ranges in my yard and lays an egg every day so it was worth the work! We love her particularly because she's 'special'.

That’s so very amazing to hear! You have no idea. I went to a A local vet last Friday – who was awful and it was the worst experience I’ve ever had with the vet – but regardless, I got the prednisone and I’m following the regimen that you suggest and I’m praying for a miracle and today I took my little one out in the sunshine and in the grass to eat breakfast and she actually laid down and did a wry neck version of a dust bath and I just broke down and cried because it’s been such a long hard road already and my heart is so involved! Clearly you know exactly what I mean! I really hope I have the same outcome that you dead because having to euthanize this bird would crush me! So in your opinion, since I started the prednisone on Saturday am I starting all over with an estimated recovery time? We’ve been at it for three weeks last Sunday but we just started the prednisone last Saturday so I wonder if I have another three or four weeks ahead of me?