PhilHarries

I've never posted in the Farming Forum but I have a problem I could do with some advice on. This is not even Thailand but chickens are chickens wherever you live, in my case Viet Nam.

We have a few chickens that the good lady keeps  for no particular reason except that everybody keeps chickens here. A few weeks back I came home Friday evening and did my usual check on the birds making sure they had food and water. One had some plastic cord wrapped around it's foot and had swallowed the end of it. So I sorted that one out then noticed one of the others was looking a bit odd, it's wing was hanging down as if it were injured but wouldn't let me close for a look. Night time it got up on the perch okay and looked a bit better however by Satruday morning it was all but immobile, just managing to flop around a bit before rolling on it's back. it went steadily downhill from there and ended up almost paralysed and in a position like it's spine had been shrunk causing it to look constantly upwards. We had the poor little mite put out of it's misery and the rest of the flock got on with there lives as normal.

Until tonight when another has suddenly gone down the same way. It's almost like a siezure or a stroke, if chickens can suffer from such things. I've tried a few other web sites and searched the internet but can not come up with anything helpful. I've said we must get the others out of the chicken house and scrub it thoroughly with a strong disinfectant.

Has anyone any idea what could be the cause and what else we could do? Veterinarian attention here is very hit and miss and sometimes I get the impression they just give human medication just to be seen doing something.