Injured Hen - Leg or Hip?

[shamforge]

Hello,

We have a quite large Barred Plymouth Rock hen that is injured. About a month ago, my husband saw her jump off the roost for some scratch he was giving them(not very high) and land on one of the others back. They both freaked out and she immediately walked away with a limp. She was definitely hurt, but still putting some weight on it, and hobbling around. She even made it up and down the ramp and would roost. None of the others were picking on her, so we decided to leave her with the flock. We figured it was a sprain from landing wrong, and that she would be just fine. Bad bad decision...and we are eaten up with guilt over it. She seemed to improve, but in actuality she wasn't resting her leg at all. Long story short, she fell off the ramp 2 nights ago, and cannot use that leg/foot at all now. she keeps it underneath her, but stretched back with the top of the foot facing downward. she can put some weight on the other good foot, but it's awkward for her so she uses her wings to slide around and barely even hobble on the one leg. She is confined now. She eats and drinks and is so alert. she talks to us when we go visit. We checked her foot and leg and really can't see anything at all that would make us think it was broken....but does the position she is holding it in mean it's broken? or is this typical when they have injured their leg? her toes are not spread apart... when she injured it the first time, she actually showed a bit of discoloration...or sort of a bruising that went away. There is nothing odd looking about it, just the fact that she can't use it. She's pretty pitiful right now, and we are just worried so much....feel awful for not isolating her in the first place. We've isolated all of our others when things happened...and they always did great. We didn't her. My question is, how resilient are these birds? Will she heal? I've read that kept in isolation and with extra care, they can, sometimes over a lengthy period of time. if it's broken, will she still be ok? We will keep her seperated for as long as possible. She can see and hear her flock. She is in a large metal dog crate and can see everything around her. she has a pet carrier with shavings inside to get in out of the cold. the crate has a soft bottom with shavings to keep her from scraping her leg and foot. Plenty of food and water. She gets special attention and is spoiled. Loves to be hand fed, and even her little face pet. We feel just awful. when she was normal, she was the first one that would come running to greet us...like a little dog. Just hoping for some encouragement, and hoping to hear of some success stories from those who did what we are doing and have had success. we won't let her suffer, so if need be she would be put down. We can't do it though until we know we have given her a fair chance. Thank you, Shannon

 

[DylansMom]

Hello,

We have a quite large Barred Plymouth Rock hen that is injured. About a month ago, my husband saw her jump off the roost for some scratch he was giving them(not very high) and land on one of the others back. They both freaked out and she immediately walked away with a limp. She was definitely hurt, but still putting some weight on it, and hobbling around. She even made it up and down the ramp and would roost. None of the others were picking on her, so we decided to leave her with the flock. We figured it was a sprain from landing wrong, and that she would be just fine. Bad bad decision...and we are eaten up with guilt over it. She seemed to improve, but in actuality she wasn't resting her leg at all. Long story short, she fell off the ramp 2 nights ago, and cannot use that leg/foot at all now. she keeps it underneath her, but stretched back with the top of the foot facing downward. she can put some weight on the other good foot, but it's awkward for her so she uses her wings to slide around and barely even hobble on the one leg. She is confined now. She eats and drinks and is so alert. she talks to us when we go visit. We checked her foot and leg and really can't see anything at all that would make us think it was broken....but does the position she is holding it in mean it's broken? or is this typical when they have injured their leg? her toes are not spread apart... when she injured it the first time, she actually showed a bit of discoloration...or sort of a bruising that went away. There is nothing odd looking about it, just the fact that she can't use it. She's pretty pitiful right now, and we are just worried so much....feel awful for not isolating her in the first place. We've isolated all of our others when things happened...and they always did great. We didn't her. My question is, how resilient are these birds? Will she heal? I've read that kept in isolation and with extra care, they can, sometimes over a lengthy period of time. if it's broken, will she still be ok? We will keep her seperated for as long as possible. She can see and hear her flock. She is in a large metal dog crate and can see everything around her. she has a pet carrier with shavings inside to get in out of the cold. the crate has a soft bottom with shavings to keep her from scraping her leg and foot. Plenty of food and water. She gets special attention and is spoiled. Loves to be hand fed, and even her little face pet. We feel just awful. when she was normal, she was the first one that would come running to greet us...like a little dog. Just hoping for some encouragement, and hoping to hear of some success stories from those who did what we are doing and have had success. we won't let her suffer, so if need be she would be put down. We can't do it though until we know we have given her a fair chance. Thank you, Shannon

Search thru some of the threads dealing with slipped tendons also called perosis. It can be caused by an injury and what happened with your hens bad jump is just the kind of injury that can do it. You should be able to find pictures and enough descriptions to figure out if this is what is wrong with her. It is more often seen in very young chicks, but can be caused by an injury at any age, it is unfortunately much harder to correct in larger birds, uncorrected they will have no use of the leg.