Turkey looks like it's leg is dislocated, can't walk

Hello all,

I have a young turkey (3 months) that recently got hurt somehow. The hen has a leg that won't straiten out. It also looks like it's twisted a little because the feet don't line up like it's other leg. I have it separated from the rest of the flock to see if I can get her to recover. She also gets pecked by the other turkeys and chickens that I have. Not sure what to do next. The chickens are also pecking the fan tail of other turkeys,not letting them grow out. I'm about to build another pen for all the turkeys so they can get all their tail feathers back. How would I check to see of the leg is dislocated?

Thanks,

Malcolm

Hello and

It does sound possibly dislocated but it's impossible to say for sure. Can you get a photo of it? It may be a slipped Achilles tendon. There's some info on leg injuries and issues on this site to look through, chances are it's the same site most people here would link you to, it's pretty much got everything covered:
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There's a chance she has a disease, as she's been targeted before by the sounds of it, but too early to say for sure.

As for the feather picking, I'd watch that, it can descend into cannibalism and indicates underlying presence of that trait in most cases. It's not a trait all chooks have, it's something noted to be strong in certain breeds and absent in others, though with certain husbandry methods for enough concurrent generations I'd expect you could cement that trait into any breed. Generally they say it means lack of protein, but some birds are obsessive about it and it's got nothing to do with hunger, and other birds will starve to death without even considering cannibalism.

Sometimes, in birds predisposed to cannibalism, including obsessive featherpickers or feather-eaters, all it takes to trigger a frenzy of cannibalism is for a single drop of blood to well up where a feather is ripped out. So I would consider their repeated featherplucking to be a potentially serious risk.

Best wishes.

Meat birds and turkeys can have bone deformities in the legs from vitamin or mineral deficiencies in the parent stock, and some will get worse with age. She also may have injured it. Vitamins may have some benefit, and the link above from Chooks 4Life may give instructions on treating a slipped tendon. Here are a couple of links to read, and the 3rd one may take a very long time to download, but it has many common deformities pictured:
http://www.upc-online.org/broiler/skeletal_problems.html
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/220/slipped-tendon-perosis
http://nhjy.hzau.edu.cn/kech/synkx/dong/2bao/Bone disorders in poultry.pdf

I finally got some decent photos of the turkey's leg. She is eating and drinking well but can't walk at all. Not sure what to do at this point.

Hmm. Can't see which leg you're referring to, sorry, they're both off angle. However I am guessing it is the right one? (His right, not mine, so the left one in the pics). He looks male to me. Lot of development for a 3 month old.

Both legs look twisted into an odd angle... Overcompensation causes injury to good legs and once that happens it can be extra hard to fix... Not necessarily impossible but you're looking at probably months of rehabilitation.

Unless it's a nutritional deficiency which it doesn't look like to me but bearing that in mind, magnesium deficiencies etc (anything bone is made up of really) can cause bowing and deformities of main bones which can fix up almost spontaneously, amazingly rapidly, with a correct diet. However that depends on the diet being lacking, not the animal's processing of the diet, because in the latter case you can feed them everything right and it won't make the difference because they don't utilize it. There's many possibilities.

Can you feel along his thighs and see if there is a break? It looks like one leg has broken and rotated somewhat, perhaps, but it's hard to tell.

Best wishes.

A mineral supplement, and a chicken sling like the ones below may help to get the turkey off it's legs to heal the leg if it's sprained or broken.

I have been searching & searching for answers to a similar problem. I was given a turkey hen yesterday by a GF that thought the turkey, Eleanor, had spraddle leg.. Well, Eleanor is 3 months old & this just recently occurred. SoI knew that wasn't it... basically she got trampled by chickens & got hurt.. her legs look exactly like yours in your pics. What came of your baby? I got her to eat some wet cat food for me last night because her poor feathers are just horrible. I'm trying to get protein in her. I had to rehab my first Roo this way & was familiar with that but her poor legs are breaking my heart.

Hi. One of the turkeys sick. Is this the same disease? It have problem with leg.



He has a problem also with the other leg.

Michal2016 said:

Hi. One of the turkeys sick. Is this the same disease? It have problem with leg. He has a problem also with the other leg.

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He looks like he may have a slipped tendon or perosis. Go back up to post number 3, and read the links about leg bone deformities. I would treat him with vitamins and minerals in his feed or water for a couple of weeks to see if he improved. Are his toes in the second picture swollen or curled under?

Thanks. I check the links and probably my turkey have perosis. The fingers are curled. I would add to food products containing vitamin D3, K, B complex and manganese. I use ready-mix for turkey so I do not know why such a problem.