Re: chicken can't walk! help!
Reply #3 - 11/25/08 at 13:26:29 I don't want to be the bearer of bad news as your hens symptoms might not be exactly like mine, but I had a cuckoo marans hen that went off her legs over the course of a week. In the end she wasn't eating hardly anything and the weight dropped off her very quickly. I took her to the vet and he said she probably had avian tuberculosis. He said there wasn't a definite test for it and there also isn't a cure. He advised me to end it for her as she would just get worse.
She displayed similar symptoms to yours and seemed to be falling or rocking backwards, sometimes she would topple over and catch herself by putting her wing out. After about 3 days she couldn't hold onto the perch and took to sleeping in the nest box. She was moulting at the time so I mistakenly thought she was fluffed up and grumpy because of that.
The vet said that it usually presents at around a year old.
Hope it's an ear infection instead of this. FOUND THIS ON ANOTHER FORUM...............NEIL