One of my Lemon Chiffon Brahma chickens, Jasmine, has had a tough time lately. First she contracted Fowl Pox and had a difficult time eating due to the sores around her mouth. Then she came down with coccidia followed by a respiratory illness. Now she’s battling wry neck. It’s been a nightmare for her but she’s a fighter. She’s been living in the house with me for a couple weeks. Frigid weather compounds health issues in chickens (or anyone). They use their energy to keep warm rather than fight illness.
Wry neck symptoms include head tilting to one side and loss of balance. They may aim to peck at food and miss it. These are early symptoms that can go from bad to worse, quickly. As it grows more severe the birds completely lose control. They may appear to have spasms or panic and flop around with their head curled to one side or their head may even go between their legs while their body flounders around in violent episodes until they exhaust themselves. It’s awful to witness.
The image above is with Jasmine’s head propped up on my knee for support. If I didn’t support her head it would be tightly under her.
Wry neck in chicks is often caused by vitamin deficiencies (Vitamin E & Selenium). In Jasmine’s case, since she is nearing egg production and far from being a chick anymore, I discovered that due to all her recent illnesses she most likely had inner ear trauma.
To treat all her various illnesses lately, I used herbal wormer (and she’s been on medicated grower – which doesn’t help once the juveniles are older) to alleviate the coccidia, Organic apple cider vinegar and garlic to help with respiratory illness. I treated the individual pox with herbal salve (it has to run it’s course, just like in humans, but you can help keep the sores from getting infected) and here’s what I did for the wry neck until I could get her to a vet for steroids. (Please note, I’m not a vet. I write about my own experiences with my flock):
- If it’s cold weather, bring them inside or keep them under a safe warmer but don’t let them get too warm.
- Keep them in a quiet place away from fluorescent light and sudden movements.
- Many sites recommend keeping the chicken in a dark place. From my observations this makes this reactive, spastic affliction much worse. Keeping a soft light positioned overhead at night when there’s no natural light helps the bird correct it’s position after a spasm and seems to keep them calmer overnight. Also, Jasmine really likes being in a space where she can hear the other birds so I keep her in the laundry room with the chick brooder. She can hear the adolescent chickens chattering and she makes happy trilling noises with them. I recommend you observe your bird to see what works best for them.
- Whatever carrier or crate you use to keep the bird in needs to have traction on the floor. Don’t use shavings or straw or anything that can get into the birds eyes and irritate them. They will be on their head a lot so it’s very easy to get an object in their eye and they have no way to remove it themselves. I had an old car floor mat I use. It doesn’t move so the bird can correct itself easier. Cleanup is easy as well. This also allows them to see and peck at bits of food since they may not be able to scratch through bedding.
- Immediately take them off medicated feed. It has a thiamine blocker and they need to absorb all their vitamins.
- They need to eat vitamin rich food, especially vitamin E and Selenium. I used what I had on hand – a mix of human vitamins (reduced and crushed, except for the E – I used a full capsule mixed in), chick vitamins and egg yolk to make it all palatable and provide natural nutrients mixed in a small amount of warm water so it would go easily into the syringe for feeding. As she got better I just shared my morning egg with her – giving her most of the yolk and cutting it into small pieces mixed with her vitamins. She scarfs it down like candy and makes feeding much easier.
- Due to the severe head tilting and spasms another feeding method is to wrap them snuggly in a towel and gently syringe liquid food into their beak, allowing them to drink it but not forcing them. Usually if you put a bit on their beak they drink it in. I only had to do this a couple days.
- Since it’s winter and colder in my laundry room I would keep her wrapped in the towel and place her in the crate upright so her head and neck had support. Overnight she would kick herself out of the towel but the small amount of time in the swaddle allowed her to rest in a natural position for a bit.
- My vet also recommended tube feeding and that worked for another patient of his…I don’t have the stomach for that. Please see a vet if your older chicken is showing the same signs as Jasmine. Chicks hatching with wry neck seem to recover much quicker than the older birds but they can recover.
It took two days of feeding every couple hours by syringe but she’s standing and walking on her own now (some days are better than others). If something startles her she still goes into involuntary spasms and flails around like she needs an exorcism. But, she has made tremendous progress. Depending on the severity of your chicken’s illness it may take much longer to see recovery…weeks or I’ve heard of cases lasting months, but this will depend upon your individual case.
As you can see below, she still has a head tilt but is standing and walking on her own now. I kept her in a window sill so she could have natural light and a view of the others outside; She gets chatty when she sees her friends. Chickens are naturally curious and I believe the view and natural light were helpful. Watching the other animals hasn’t triggered the spasms and seems to encourage her natural behaviors. You’ll have to decide for yourself what works best for your case but if it’s an adult bird I suggest a vet visit to check the inner ears.
I’m happy to say Jasmine fully recovered from Coccidia, the respiratory illness, fowl pox and now is on the mend from wry neck. She’s eating, drinking and preening on her own now. I did’t leave water in with her for when she did lose control. After all this attention lately she probably thinks she’s human. I’m very proud of my little trooper. xo