splayed leg or slipped tendon in 10-day-old chick?

hi all... i'm a first-time chicken mum with five lovely babies who are now 10 days old. a couple of days ago i found my large golden laced wyandotte chick (i think it's a rooster because he's much bigger) lying on his side with one leg out.

i'd left the chicks in the incubator on pine shavings (no paper towel) for a day, so after searching online i thought i'd caused splayed leg. i put a rubber band brace on his legs. he could easily use his left leg and although he didn't much like using the right leg, he could do it. after 24 hours he'd slipped the bad leg out of the rubber band, so i attached a rubber band and half-inch piece of plastic straw as a brace between his legs.

he then started hopping on his good leg, not using his bad leg at all and flapping his wings to move around the incubator. i'm worried that i'm treating him for splayed leg instead of a slipped tendon.

i've just taken the splint off him and he is standing perfectly on his left leg with his right leg held up. he can curl his right toes and grip things, just doesn't want to rest on it at all. he's still eating and drinking fine, but i think i may only have a short time to address this if it's an injury...

any advice would be very much appreciated... thank you in advance!

Hi! We hatched chicks from an incubator around july 4th. We had two chicks that had one leg that was disabled and it couldn't touch the ground. They had to hop on one leg. Sadly one of them couldn't walk to the water and food, and she sadly passed, yet the other one learned how to function. We tried making a little splint, but it didn't work. She was using her wings to help herself walk. The rest of them were growing quickly, while she was quite small. now she is half there size, but is doing great! She lays down most of the time, and hops to go and get food.
Hopefully your chick does the same

Thanks so much for this... I'm sad that you lost the first little one but it's great the other one has learned how to get around anyway! My little guy seems really healthy and strong besides his leg. He's even guarding all the other ones in the brooder. Thank you again xxx

merrow said:

hi all... i'm a first-time chicken mum with five lovely babies who are now 10 days old. a couple of days ago i found my large golden laced wyandotte chick (i think it's a rooster because he's much bigger) lying on his side with one leg out.

i'd left the chicks in the incubator on pine shavings (no paper towel) for a day, so after searching online i thought i'd caused splayed leg. i put a rubber band brace on his legs. he could easily use his left leg and although he didn't much like using the right leg, he could do it. after 24 hours he'd slipped the bad leg out of the rubber band, so i attached a rubber band and half-inch piece of plastic straw as a brace between his legs.

he then started hopping on his good leg, not using his bad leg at all and flapping his wings to move around the incubator. i'm worried that i'm treating him for splayed leg instead of a slipped tendon.

i've just taken the splint off him and he is standing perfectly on his left leg with his right leg held up. he can curl his right toes and grip things, just doesn't want to rest on it at all. he's still eating and drinking fine, but i think i may only have a short time to address this if it's an injury...

any advice would be very much appreciated... thank you in advance!

Click to expand...

see the Raising Chicks thread called Virgin chicken owner---beginning of the journey Post # 71. One of the cites in that post discusses how to fix your problem.
Best,
karen

thank you so much karen... that's an excellent source of information that i will keep to refer to from now on!

i've been trying to build a chick chair to immobilise the little guy while his leg heals. he's escaped three different chairs several times each now... will keep trying.

i really hate causing him pain/discomfort/fear but i'd rather do this now than have him in pain as an adult... i have to keep telling myself that it's for his own good because it's so hard for me to do.

x