chick with hurt leg!! help!

[ChickenJill]

My chicks are 4 weeks old and one of them has a leg that is turned out to the side and it limps.

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

Did this just happen? What sort of bedding have you used? Newspaper is too slick for little chick feet and can give them leg problems. If it just suddenly cropped up, perhaps your chicks are zipping around testing their new wing feathers and have gotten an injury. If that's the case, it may be dislocated or something. If it's been like this since it hatched, you've probably missed your window of opportunity for fixing spraddle-leg and you should cull it.

 

[ChickenJill]

It just happened a few days ago. I used wood chips as bedding and the rest are fine. But the bedding got very wet from the baby ducks. Should I try to put a splint on it?

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

There's certainly nothing to stop you from trying. Could something have gone off in your feed? Chicks grow fast so if there's a mineral deficiency it could lead to weaker joints and connective tissues. As a rule, I don't give my chicks anything other than starter until they're fully feathered. After that I let them peck around in the grass and sample other foods at will. If your feed had gotten damp or was a bad batch, there might not have been an even enough distribution of vitamins and minerals. I would think if that were the cause you'd see more than one troubled chick. I hope your splint idea works. I've never tried one, but I've seen in Backyard Poultry magazine where small chicks were given a spraddle-leg cure using bandaids. Not sure of what to do for an older chick. Good luck!