Wing injury

[yokel]

I have a Female chicken one year old, average size. Cross between brown leghorn roo and either a red sex link or a brown lohman mum.

It's displaying normal behaviour except, dragging it's left hand primaries on the ground to the extent of tripping on them sometimes. It's refusing to use or move it's left wing. The whole wing from the shoulder seems to have 'drooped' down the side of the body.

This was noticed 3 days ago

There's no visible or palpable injury I can tell apart from maybe a little swelling, and wing articulation feels 'sloppier' than the other side. The only thing I haven't had a good feel for yet is a broken wishbone. The main wing bones feel intact end to end.

I didn't witness whatever occurred to cause it. No other issues in the rest of the flock like fox attacks etc.

The bird is eating and drinking normally, water, grain, mealworm, seeds, corn

It's doing normal poo & laying an egg daily

Treatment so far since it was noticed has been, strapping the wing up into normal position with vet wrap & isolation in a big parrot cage, with daily visits by the other 9 birds in the flock

I'm hoping to treat the bird myself at home if poss. It's only been 3 days, but I fancy maybe when I've been changing the vet wrap each day, the wing is perhaps hanging slightly higher each time but that could be wishful thinking.

Could the wishbone be broken? Is there a home fix for that?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Getting an Xray would be best, but sometimes that's not possible.

The splinting manual linked below may be helpful to you.

https://theiwrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Duerr_Splinting_Manual_2010.pdf

 

[yokel]

Thanks. I managed to feel the wishbone today & I think it's fine.

Coracoid disarticulated from the sternum or some other cartilagenous issue maybe, are my current guesses, but I'm no vet

I've been able to really get a good feel of all the bones now & they do all seem as they should be (just the coracoid is a little difficult because it's quite deep down)

Strapped up for now, thanks for the manual that looks really interesting reading & I'll be giving it close attention. In particular it warns of the dangers of trying too hard to re-articulate a displaced coracoid but I figure, just keeping the strap in place to keep the wing lifted should help rather than hinder.

I feel somewhat uncaring saying so but an Xray would be prohibitively expensive :-(

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thanks. I managed to feel the wishbone today & I think it's fine.

Coracoid disarticulated from the sternum or some other cartilagenous issue maybe, are my current guesses, but I'm no vet

I've been able to really get a good feel of all the bones now & they do all seem as they should be (just the coracoid is a little difficult because it's quite deep down)

Strapped up for now, thanks for the manual that looks really interesting reading & I'll be giving it close attention. In particular it warns of the dangers of trying too hard to re-articulate a displaced coracoid but I figure, just keeping the strap in place to keep the wing lifted should help rather than hinder.

I feel somewhat uncaring saying so but an Xray would be prohibitively expensive :-(

Let me know how she's doing.

I agree, a vet visit can be very expensive, so more often than not we all try to do our best to treat from home

 

[yokel]

Still seems OK this morning, happy enough, eating, drinking, laid another egg & calling for the rest of the flock. Hasn't taken her vet wrap off, for once..

I bought a supermarket chicken last night to try and visualise things a bit better. It was a useful experience carefully dismantling and exploring it with a scalpel.

For one thing it showed me a dislodged coracoid is probably unlikely - the coracoid-sternum joint seems very strong indeed and very well surrounded by muscle and sinew. I get the feeling one would have to apply really quite severe pulling force whilst restraining the body to do any damage there.

From what I could see a scapula "uprooted" from it's muscle bed, or stretched sinews / ripped muscles in that area would be more likely to result in the drooping shoulder. Maybe similar damage somewhere else along the wing, outward from the shoulder.

Forming the impression maybe she's got caught up somewhere and has been struggling to free the wing. If a predator's been able to get enough purchase on her to rip muscle I would have thought at the very least I'd see some bitten/broken feathers, bare patches, bite marks on the skin etc.

I have 3 cockerels in the flock which have come up from eggs, they normally get on well with each other and the girls with little to no aggression. But maybe unseen she's been subject to some rough attention from them?

If it isn't a disarticulated sternum-coracoid joint, the fix would seem to be the same for all eventualities.. fold up the wing, strap it up folded, then strap the folded wing to the body keeping it up high, whilst leaving the other wing free.

So just going to keep doing what I'm already doing, and hope for the best

 

[yokel]

2 weeks now, but I'm going to keep her strapped up for a little longer. She's quite happy & stable although she's stopped laying. When I take the bandage off, she can keep the wing up off the floor a lot better but she still can't make it move. Goes out with the flock for a couple of hours occasionally, they're all pretty good with her, but she keeps herself to herself & seems kinda glad to go back in her parrot cage indoors. Time will tell, will report back in a week or two.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

2 weeks now, but I'm going to keep her strapped up for a little longer. She's quite happy & stable although she's stopped laying. When I take the bandage off, she can keep the wing up off the floor a lot better but she still can't make it move. Goes out with the flock for a couple of hours occasionally, they're all pretty good with her, but she keeps herself to herself & seems kinda glad to go back in her parrot cage indoors. Time will tell, will report back in a week or two.

Glad she's hanging in there!
Thank you for the update.

 

[yokel]

Seems like slow progress but at least, in the right direction. I'm not rightly sure what to do from here.

I've let her out for the full day round the garden today (it's 3 quarters of an acre with many different areas, grass, wooded, various post and rail fenced animal pens) and she's stuck with the flock and been OK, pecking around, got herself a fullish crop. Been ridden around by one of the roos once or twice but shrugged it off without too much trouble. Wing has mainly remained up by her side but couple of times dropped & got caught round her left foot & needed me to go out & human-release.

Main problem now seems to be, she's completely unable to command movement in the left wing, can't make it move at all.

I thought about removing all feathers from the wing to reduce the weight on it & maybe let it heal up further without the drag of gravity. How I'd remove the feathers I don't know. In the absence of a vet's direction or somebody else who knows what they're doing I'm just bringing her in every night to the parrot cage so she can roost unmolested.

Pretty much just giving it time now..

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'd give it time and see how it goes.

I'm not sure how you would pluck any wing feathers without it being painful and risking ripping/tearing skin. I understand your thought process of reducing weight, but pulling them would likely do more harm than good.

Sounds like she's holding her own fairly well though!

 

[yokel]

Yes I didn't like the idea of plucking them out either. Thought maybe there's some magic paint-on potion or something that would cause painless shedding. Google didn't find anything though & I have abandoned that idea.

I'm pretty sure she's going to be OK in the main, it'd obviously be nice to see the wing fully recover. Will try to remember to report how it goes.