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You misunderstand. I did NOT use it - ever - and had crook neck. I started using it last November with the chicks until they are about 4 months old and I DON'T see it. At all. This is my third batch and I have not lost any chicks. The line of birds is the same. The food is the same. The V&E is the only difference. What I used to do when they got crook neck (and it was a high percentage, like 50%, before they were a few weeks old) was dose them with the infant vitamins (per a board suggestion) and some would survive. I was ready to quit breeding them b/c so many died.

Maybe you have a better line of birds than i do. They are supposed to be SQ and I paid alot for them. (well, imo anyway - they were $60/pair, and I started with 3 different pairs) They are all from the same person. They are the only ones I have seen it in. I have always had silkies, even when i was a kid, but they always came from auctions or Murray McMurray. Nothing really special, but they didn't have this genetic problem either. At the time I was discussing this on the board a few years ago, other silkie people said they saw this problem also. The person I bought them from said 'I NEVER saw it' Frankly I don't believe them. They started showing up with crook neck from the very first hatch. This person tried to imply I must be doing something wrong (and I believed them at first), but just breeding chickens is not difficult - any idiot can hatch eggs and have chicks survive if they provide the basic necessities.

I hear you on the V&E, but I need to do something. What i did do wasn't working. I tried every 'special' diet that everyone on this board suggested. Nothing changed my outcome. Stopping the V&E is not the solution unless I figure out what they are missing in their diet. Maybe you can tell me. I feed a complete food. The adults usually get a 50/50 mix of layer and grower. When there are chicks in the pen, the chicks and their moms get 20% starter/grower until the chicks are ready for grower only, and then everyone gets just grower. I don't give the silkies scratch or corn except maybe once in a great while as a special treat. They get greens regularly in small amounts, not a lot, b/c i don't want them filling up on food w/o much nutrition. When it is really cold I will make up the sprouted wheat mix that I found here awhile ago. The entire flock doesn't get V&E, just the babies and any moms that are with them. So it isn't really continuous (except for the ones that keep insisting on setting eggs over and over, and they do get a break until the chicks hatch)