Our First Chicken Vet Visit

Clyde showed some signs of wry neck a few days ago.  Wry neck is when a bird basically loses control of their neck and it twitches, jerks, and twists in strange ways.  They can also end up flipping over backwards or walking backwards.  The first day it was just twitching and twisting once in awhile.  I followed the advice I read online and bought Vitamin E and Selenium to give him, but within two days I found him on the coop floor.  

I thought he was dead and immediately started screaming for the oldest to come outside.  I finally saw him move slightly and when we went into the coop to get him I realized that he was on the ground with his head twisted backward and on the floor.  

I held him while the oldest ran to the neighbors to borrow a large crate to put him in.  He ate and drank what we gave him but it was clear he had no real control over his own body. 

The next morning I called a vet and made an appointment to take him and BigRed in.  After work I raced home with the boys, wrapped the birds up in towels, handed one to each boy, and turned around to head back to town.

(I will skip the part of the story where I blew a tire and had to call someone to come get us and take us the rest of the way.  No, I'm not kidding.)

The youngest and BigRed

The oldest and Clyde

The vet visit was almost two hours long.

The vet said that chicken feed often has particles of metal in them, and if a chicken digests it, they can have issues like these.  He said it could be another issue too.  He offered to do an x-ray to see if there was metal, or start antibiotics and see how things went, or put him to sleep.

Clyde had lost a bit of weight and was only 6 pounds, but was alert and eating with a little help and these were good signs.

I turned to the oldest and asked him what he wanted to do.  We'd already talked about he would be paying the vet bill since this was his chicken (even though I didn't really plan on making him pay the whole thing.)  He said he wanted to use his first paycheck to pay for the x-ray, so they took Clyde back.

Not a good picture, but there was metal in there

 There was indeed a piece of metal in his stomach.  They said if we follow the treatment, the prognosis was fairly good.  He has to get a shot of medicine twice a day, take a half of a large pill twice a day, and get an oral medication twice a day.  Basically the three medicines would help the metal work it's way out of him and he would be on antibiotics to keep him healthy until he was cleared again.

BigRed is a bigger concern in terms of her prognosis.  The vet thinks that a follicle from an egg was basically lost inside her body and her body was reacting to it by building up a lot of fluid.  She also was a little underweight, but was 7 pounds (a pound heavier than Clyde, probably because of the fluid.)  He said he could put her to sleep or we could try some medicine to see if that improved anything. Her medicine is a half of a pill and some oral medication that is a mix of antibiotics and pain killers in the hopes that the fluid will decrease and she'll get back to normal.  He said she only had a 50/50 chance of getting better and he wanted to see her again in two weeks to see if there was any improvement.

Waiting for the vet is tiring

I made it very clear that I was not capable of giving anyone a shot so I made sure that the vet taught the oldest how to do it.

I paid the hefty vet bill, we wrapped the chickens back up and headed home.  This morning, the oldest woke up earlier than normal so that we'd have time to give out all of the medicine.  Clyde got his shot and they both got all of the oral medication before I had to leave for work.  This evening we did it all over again.

So far there is no sign of improvement in either of them, but I am still hopeful since it has only been 24 hours.

I'm shocked to hear about metal being in the feed and now I'm researching what we can do to get it out, I may be investing in a big magnet to stir through the feed every day.