| I told my roommate that Daisy was dying. Then I went back out to pet her and tell her how much we loved her and I burst into tears. She was still breathing. Then, I went to the farmers market.
When I came back after the market, Daisy was still breathing. Seeing me, she struggled to her feet. I was surprised but happy. She still had her head down. I examined her face more closely and found no blood and no injuries. Using an eye dropper, I gave her some water. She wasn't eating and I figured she probably felt so sick, she wasn't hungry.
Monday morning, Daisy was still hanging in there. She was occasionally making a squawking noise that didn't sound terribly happy, but clearly she had enough energy to get a noise out. She even hobbled down the chicken stairs in the coop to the bottom floor. But her face was still down and turned to the side.
Since it was in the 90s outside, I brought her indoors in a box filled with straw and turned the A/C on. I gave her some oatmeal and an egg, but she had a hard time eating. She would lunge for the food and miss. Her problem looked like it was neurological. At one point, she walked backward. I put her back in the coop after the weather cooled off so she could be in a familiar environment with her friends (the roosters, pictured above).
Late that night, I googled "chicken can't raise her head" or something similar and I found a condition called "crookneck" (also known as "wry neck," "limber neck," and "stargazing") that matched her symptoms. One site gave a method to cure it using vitamins B & E, selenium, and prednisone. We would need to get the prednisone from the vet. I also realized that she would starve to death if she did not eat or drink soon, so I gave her some raw goat's milk and a bit of water mixed with vitamin B2 (all I had on hand at 2am) using an eye dropper.
Yesterday morning, I made a vet appointment and bought liquid B complex and selenium and capsules of vitamin E. I gave her the vitamin B and mixed the E with some oatmeal that she had a few bites of but couldn't get the selenium down her. The vet looked into the problem and found roughly the same information that I had: there were a number of possible causes, most of which would require expensive testing. The cheapest and simplest thing to do would be trying the vitamins and prednisone and hoping for the best. He prescribed the pills, giving her fewer pills (but double the strength) than what the website called for.
Here's the plan:
- Days 1-3: 5mg Prednisone & 400 IU vitamin E twice a day; Squirt of B complex and about 25 mcg selenium (3 drops) once a day.
- Days 4-7: 400 IU vitamin E twice a day; Squirt of B complex, 3 drops selenium, and 5mg Prednisone once a day.
- Week 2: 400 IU vitamin E & squirt of B complex once a day; 3 drops selenium & 5mg prednisone every other day.
- Week 3: Continue Vitamins B & E (same doses) once a day. 3 drops selenium once a week. No more prednisone.
- After week 3: Continue daily vitamin E for several weeks.
Daisy had her first full day of drugs and vitamins yesterday. I brought a cup of goat's milk and an eye dropper to the vet with me, and the vet's assistant helped me feed Daisy several droppers of milk. (Note: I don't think there's anything special about goat's milk vs. cow's milk, but it's what I had on hand. I do like that it's full fat, since Daisy could use a little fat right now.)
I kept her indoors with the A/C on until it cooled down outside. When the weather cooled down I took her outside the same time I fed the other birds. I put Daisy in the coop, figuring there was no way she could eat, and poured the food on the ground outside the coop. Daisy tried to get to the food, doing a face plant out of the coop. Her two rooster "friends" began pecking her in a very aggressive way that I have never observed in my flock before. I scooped Daisy back up and brought her inside, where I gave her a bowl of pellets to eat. She was clearly hungry and immediately ate some.
I was so mad at those stupid roosters, I would have eaten them if they were big enough to eat. Rooster tamales, I think. Daisy slept indoors, in her box. I put her on the bathroom floor with the door closed so none of the other pets could bother her. This morning, her head was up! She's doing MUCH better already. She was even making happy chicken cooing noises. She was not pleased about this morning's course of meds and vitamins, which we stuffed down her poor little (very unwilling) beak. It's amazing how hard it is to open a chicken's beak when the chicken does not want it opened!
Then I took the roosters to their new home, so that Daisy can go back outside without getting pecked to death. The other hens are so busy being broody, I doubt they'll even notice another chicken around, sick or not. But since it's still 90 outside, Daisy's inside enjoying the A/C for the moment.
My hope is that after Daisy recovers enough to eat like a chicken again, we won't have to force feed her the meds. We can put the liquids on a piece of bread for her, and we can crush her pills and open the vitamin E capsules and mix it all into some oatmeal for her. Most of this will fall on my roommate, as I am leaving for Bolivia on Friday. I get back the day after the end of the third week, and by then Daisy will only need vitamin E and nothing else.
One last comment: It's VERY frustrating when you are searching for a cure for crookneck in chickens and all you find are recipes for chicken with crookneck squash!!!!! |
