Poor Fred! It sounds like he suffered not only a physical injury but maybe a brain injury as well. Does he seem to have trouble balancing or walking? This problem is called Crookneck, also sometimes Twirling and/or Stargazing, if you do some research online you can fine out more and see if it fits. After all this time I don't know what you could do for him...A Silkie breeder friend of mine has a treatment involving Selenium and Vitamin E for head injuries to crested breeds, you could try it I guess. For what it's worth, here's his advice for treating Crookneck, caused by a blow to the head or bad feed, the text between the rows of **'s is his advice: ******************* Here is my theory and therapy for what some call "limber neck" and I call crookneck. The symptoms first show as a crook in the neck. It progresses to tucking the head, then tucking the head between the legs, then backing up, and tumbling over. It usually hits young birds but can happen at any age. It is unclear what causes crookneck. American Silkie Bantam Club members suggest water on the brain, vitamin E deficiency, and injury to the brain that is outside the skull and forms the knob on the top of Silkie's heads. Water on the brain was seen in a necropsy of an affected bird. Prednisone was suggested as symptomatic relief. Vitamin E and B complex are both good for neurological disorders. Selenium helps absorb vitamin E. Here's what I do for affected birds. If started before symptoms get severe, the bird will totally recover. To give vitamin E - just cut the end off a human capsule and squirt it in the bird's mouth. It is important to be sure the bird gets enough to eat and drink while it has this problem. Birds with severe cases of crookneck can't eat and drink enough to survive. You will need to gently place their head in the feed dish and carefully dip just the tip of the beak in water. Be careful not to dip too far into the water and to not stress the bird while trying to help. For the first week I give Twice a day 2.5 mg of prednisone 400 IU of vitamin E Once a day A piece of human vitamin B complex pill or a squirt of human liquid vitamins Selenium (50 micrograms/day for half size juvenile for 3 days) For the second week I give Once a day 2.5 mg of prednisone 400 IU of vitamin E A piece of human vitamin B complex pill or a squirt of human liquid vitamins Every other day Selenium (50 micrograms/day for half size juvenile for 3 days) For the following weeks I give Once a day 2.5 mg of prednisone 400 IU of vitamin E A piece of human vitamin B complex pill or a squirt of human liquid vitamins Every third day Selenium (50 micrograms/day for half size juvenile for 3 days) Do not abruptly stop prednisone, the swelling rebounds, decrease dose gradually. Vitamin E recovery can be slow; continue the vitamin E for several weeks at least. You can get the prednisone from a vet; just describe the problem of swelling in the brain probably due to injury. Yes, Silkies' brains do stick out through a hole on the top of the skull. You can get the vitamin E, selenium, and vitamin B complex or liquid vitamins at any pharmacy. ****************** When I used this technique I could not get Prednisone and had to stick with just the Vit E and Selenium, it worked out fine. Good luck! Velvet ~:>

Missinformation, no one is going to think less of you for asking questions. The gizzard is a strong muscular organ in any bird's digestive system. Because birds lack teeth, they need some other way of grinding up the food. They also swallow small bits of grit which end up in the gizzard. The muscle walls press the food against the grit and it is ground into a more digestible pulp and then goes on through the intestines where the nutrients are absorbed. When you process a chicken, the largest organ you will find is the gizzard. It is quite hard and about the size and shape of a plum, but flatter. Inside there us a wrinkly lining containing what the chicken has eaten and perhaps a dozen or more pieces of grit. It makes some people squeamish, but once the contents and inner membrane are removed, the gizzard is perfectly good to eat. (You've probably seem one among the giblets of your Christmas turkey - it would already be cleaned out and washed, of course.) I always use the giblets (heart, liver and gizzard) when we eat a chicken. Cut fine and added to soup or stew, they are tasty. Gizzard and heart are quite chewy, so I usually put the giblets in the blender with the liquid they were simmered in and then add the mixture to the pan drippings for gravy. Waste not, want not!

When French Molt first appeared in parakeets some thought it was a genetic condition and others thought it was a virus. It seems to be both. Still some experts say it is strictly a virus and others say it is purely genetic. They also said it was only parakeets and no other birds had it-then during the late 60s it began showing up in Zebra and Society finches. After that Canaries and cockatiels, lovebirds began developing this condition. Now there are 115 bird species that develops this condition (in China ducks develop this). My question is if it is only a virus why doesn't the whole flock get it? Why does it only appear in certain bloodlines within a flock? Common sense would lead one to think it is both. Affected birds must have a genetic predisposition to develop this condition. As more and more verities of birds are being breed in captive line breeding programs without occasional injection of new genes I believe is the cause which leads to a weaker immune systems that make them susceptible to this and other diseases. But then Velvet could be right, that it is just a heavy molt! Either way I would not include that bird in any ongoing breeding program out of fear of further negative mutations developing. This is just my opinion, any you know what they say about opinions...

I've misled everyone, I think. My mother said to me yesterday, "Will you quit saying that his throat was slit? It makes it sound like a person killed him!" It's pretty unlikely that a person killed him, we think. I live on a dead-end camp road where all the traffic is from lifelong neighbor-friends. Right now there are less than 10 winter residents on the road. The only person who threatened Roland's life was my cousin, Mark, who hates roosters, but loves me. Plus, being a summer resident, he was having Thanksgiving at his home 35 miles away. He did threaten Roland the very day the bird showed up dead, and I intend to make him feel bad about it the next time we talk. But he wouldn't really kill him. Here's how the bird's wounds are better described (I was really horrified to see him and his eyes were open, so I didn't examine him the way a mature person would have.): (You might not want to read this.) He was on his back and his throat was ripped open. The reason it looked slit to me was that in the middle of the throat was a white divider--a bone or cartilage that ran from his beak down the middle of the wound. It looked like two separate lengthwise injuries down each side of oh! could it be his windpipe? They weren't really slits, though, his entire throat was damaged. I live on a lake, and a few years ago, I saw what looked like a horrible, furry, snake weaving its creepy body in and throughout the rocks on the shore. When the loud screeching stopped, I realized that what I might have seen was a mink. I've never seen another weasel or mink my whole life, but I did see a dead mink on the road once about 4 miles from here. My birds generally spend their days in a pen connected to their house. It is a dog kennel with the sides reinforced with chicken wire. I am fairly confident that it is hawk, dog, raccoon and fox-proof. There are a few breaches in the system that a skinny thing like a mink or weasel could---maybe---get through. My birds get locked in their house every night after they roost, but I'm often lax about what hour I close their little hen door. Nothing has ever bothered them, so the idea of it being a weasel is surprising to me. But not impossible to imagine. It's the total lack of blood on the bird and under him that has me so puzzled. (I did find part of his comb---a tiny tip torn off---the only damage to it. I found that in the house.) I haven't seen any sign of a struggle outside of the house, and the idea that he might have walked home that damaged upsets me, so I stopped looking around yesterday. In the last 24 hours, I've eliminated the hens. They have no blood on them. I feel good about that. The human theory is not impossible, but it would take an especially angry person to toss the bird back into my henhouse. It would have had to be a stranger to my road and it would have had to have happened between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving. Thank you for thinking it through with me. And thank you for your sympathy. I was going to write again about Roland because I'd given him such a bad rap before. Once he figured out having sex with animate objects, he seemed to settle down. I had become very fond of my little charge (pun intended) in the 28 days I knew him.