Derperella, the (weird) Faverolles, & Friends

[jeronica]

Today was warm enough to get a short video of Derp as she snuggled against my legs!

I heard one of my girls make that noise last night! It was after they had gone to bed for the night, and I had to check for eggs (again, since I suspect 2 out of the 6 are now laying!). They saw me with my light and one of them trill/purred at me.

Such a sweet little noise! They were definitely very sleepy though, since I was a bit late getting out there.

You're probably at your appointment right now, wishing you good news!

 

[sparky chicken]

Cute!!!

 

[drumstick diva]

Anxiously awaiting word about Baron, like all the rest of us.

 

[KayTee]

X2. Hoping everything went ok.

 

[froggiesheins]

I do hope the old saying: "No no news is good news" is true.......

 

[Nambroth]

Baron saw the Vet yesterday. He was so good for the two hour car ride (each way!) though he kept trying to roost on my arm. All 6 lbs of him! With a pointy keel no less. Eek. I convinced him several times that my lap was the best bet.

The vet (licensed avian specialist, sees chickens regularly) indicated, after we carefully discussed flock history, that she does not see this problem as being neurological and is inconsistent with what we (both) expect to see from Marek's. Not that Marek's follows any rules, but at this point it seems more likely that there was an injury. She said that he was treating the leg as if he had a fracture, and she's seen other chickens do this same thing when they had a fracture somewhere in their legs.
So, we had a series of x-rays done on him, and they revealed no injury, to our surprise. He had no swelling either.

He seemed tender when she was putting pressure on his knee, so she thinks it might be an injury of the soft tissue around the knee joint. We brought home more Metacam (pain reliever and anti-inflammatory) and I'm giving him 12 hour doses of it.

So far he is about the same, though a bit more sleepy (the Metacam might be making him feel this way). We hope to see some improvement in the next week.

 

[Nambroth]

If your perch is too high he could be damaging his growing bones etc as he jumps down, trousers may have got away with it as he was full grown, I had an large ex bat who got bumble foot from jumping down from a fence onto concrete too many times so she would hop about. Large breeds are prone to problems with there legs if its too high, if they can walk under the perch without ducking put some steps up as at that height it is to high to be comfortable to jump of without flapping yet to low for flapping to work.

The perch is about 20" off of the floor of the coop. He is actually taller than it is!

 

[blueberrychickens]

I hope Baron will be ok and Marek's doesn't rear its ugly head again!

 

[KayTee]

Thank you for the update Nambroth - us derpaddicts have been seriously worried about you all.
Poor Baron! He's so lucky to have such a caring fud lady and fud guy - a 4 hour round trip to see the vet!

Really glad to hear that even the vet doesn't think it's Marek's

(and given your history with her she really seems to know her stuff. Wish there was someone like her near me - my nearest specialist is over 3 hours away)

I'm suffering from tendonitis (tennis elbow) at the moment. It's really painful and I don't want to use my arm unless I have to, but the doctor's given me a special elasticated strapping support which helps a lot - I wonder if they do them in chicken sizes?

 

[Gryphon]

Huh. I wonder if chickens go through growing pains. When I was a teen I'd get such horrible charlie horses that I'd be pinned to the ground and afterwards I'd limp.