Silkies may look slightly different than your regular chicken but there aren’t many differences between silkies and other types of chickens.
And just like other types of chickens silkie behavior can seem odd to us, behavior like a bird walking backward. This article looks into why your silkie chicken is walking backward.
Table of Contents
Silkie chicken walking backwards:
Illness, disease, and viruses are usually what causes silkies to change behavior, knowing what is wrong with your bird can help you figure out how you can help your bird.
Here is why your silkie may be walking backward:
Vitamin deficiency:
What your bird eats is a very big determining factor in if your bird is healthy or not. If there is something lacking in your silkies diet then it can start to get sick.
If your bird is walking backward then this likely means that your bid has a vitamin E or selenium deficiency.
Other signs of this deficiency in your bird include being off balance and the bird swinging its head.
What to do:
This can easily be remedied by supplementing vitamin E and selenium into the bird’s diet.
You can choose to supplement vitamin E and selenium into the bird’s diet through food, or, you can choose to give these nutrients to the birds in pill form if you can get the birds to take the pills.
Foods rich in vitamin E include spinach chard, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and dandelion, and foods rich in selenium include tuna.
If your birds aren’t eating these foods then rather give your bird supplements in the form of tablets.
If you’re wanting to give these birds tablets you can head over to your local Walgreens and pick up some tablets. You can give the birds 400iu Vitamin E liquid tablets and 50mcg selenium tablets.
Serve the tablets by squeezing the liquid from the tablets directly into the bird’s mouth. Dissolve the selenium into some water and syringe this water into her mouth.
You can also use an eye dropper to get the solution into the bird’s mouth.
Newcastle disease:
Newcastle disease may also be the reason why your chicken is walking backward. This is a quick-spreading viral infection that is quite serious and can affect and kill many birds.
Other signs of this disease in your silkies, apart from the bird walking backward, include loose droppings, bleeding nares, walking in circles, discharge from eyes, misshapen eggs, drop in egg quality, and partial paralysis of the limbs
What to do:
Unfortunately, there is no treatment for this disease. In fact, because it is so easily spread it is recommended that a bird that is confirmed to have Newcastle disease be euthanized.
Once this is done thoroughly clean and sanitize the area to kill off the virus from the area.
When introducing any new birds to your flock it is recommended that you practice good biosecurity measures by quarantining any new birds that come into your flock to observe them and their health.
You can vaccinate healthy birds but it is recommended that you give chicks their vaccinations while still in the egg, these are the most effective types of vaccinations.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Silkie Chicken Not Walking, Silkie Chicken Not Walking Or Moving, Silkie Chicken Not Walking And Shaking, Silkie Not Walking Or Eating
