Limping Chicken

[marierachel17]

Hi! I just got the 8 hens I posted about recently. We moved them into the new run and coop and they seem to have settled in. But I noticed one of them (Elaine) is limping. She is the one they pick on most . She is still moving around (laying in her dust bath too) When shes standing around she holds her left foot off the ground and when she walks, she has a very noticeable limp. Thankfully she is still moving around to look for a bugs a little bit and is also eating and drinking a little. Is there anything I can do to help her? I feel really bad and my parents don’t think it’s worth it to go to an exotic vet.

 

[Eggcessive]

You might try separating her in a wire dog crate with food and water, but left near the other chickens, to force her to rest the leg. It could be an injury, which might be the reason she is beign picked on, or they may have caused the injury. Mareks disease is sometimes a possibility if she is trying to use the leg and it does not work. If she is lifting or holding up the leg, it sounds more injured. Videos of her walking could be helpful, but they need to be posted to YouTube with a link her.

 

[marierachel17]

“Eggcessive”,
Thank you. I think we’ll keep an eye on it and take a closer look tomorrow to see if resting overnight helped. I think we’ll try the dog crate if it seems worse. You mean keep her in the crate in the run with the others, correct? And would I let her sleep in the henhouse with the others at night? There tends to be some drama about who sleeps where, so I think they might be being mean to her there too.

 

[ForeverFactor]

I hope your hen does better than my cockerel I had to cull. In his case it was either growing too fast(Jersey Giant) or an injury or quite possibly both. He looked like he was getting better for a while then went done hill and I decided it was best not to let him suffer. I hope your experience turns out better than mine.