You will have to forgive my looooong drawn out explanation , however I feel its necessary to include every detail as im a little perplexed
I have a Crimson hen whom I believe is a seed specialist .... now suffering what I suspect is Vitamin B deficiency.
Originally a fellow AFF member and I had suspected she was suffering from protein poisoning as she seemed to sit on the feed dish and gorge herself on soaked seed and live food .
She became ill , was fluffed up all the time and in poor condition ( no other birds in my colony have ever been ill as I am extremely strict in cleaning habits , preventative treatment courses , providing supplementary vitamins and greens , etc etc )
She would respond positively to probiotics and bounce back quite quickly .
This became a regular pattern and consequently I removed her from the colony .
I housed her in isolation , ceased soaked seed and live food feeding and restricted her to dry seed only , gave her a course of antibiotic and followed up with probiotics once more .
At first she responded quite well and was returned to the colony .... only to relapse within 48 to 72 hours .
This occurred several times and I decided to remove her completely from the colony and main aviary .
So same treatment repeated and she remained in the holding cage ( with a romantic BC ) where she seemed to thrive and returned to good condition .
Recently the seed mix from the local pet supply store was very low in plain canary and jap millet , but high in red panicum yellow panicum , millet and so on .
At first I had thought nothing much of it being seed that was causing her ailments and continued feeding the new mix ... within days she had lost condition again and was on the floor of the holding cage fluffed up once more . So she was hospitalized in isolation and given fresh dry seed ... long story short she bounced back , was returned to the holding cage and relapsed days later ... this happened several times , she was seemingly oblivious to any other seed so I studied her feeding habits ... and noticed her only taking the plain canary and jap millet ... even with the soaked seed it was just the jap millet and plain canary taken .
I provided her with more of the 2 seeds and she bounced back once again .
Just this past week I have noticed her fumbling on the perch and on the seed hopper ... as if intoxicated .
I removed her from the cage and it appeared she had possibly injured her leg/s .... However I was wrong , her legs were in fact suffering paralysis.
I researched all possibilities and narrowed it down to Vitamin B deficiency brought on by seed specialization .... would any of my fellow AFF members concur with my diagnosis ?
If so what is the best course of treatment as I have never been down this road before ... if indeed I am correct that is .
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read the post and I look forward to replies .
Brad.
