I was also wondering about viral arthritis. My brother in law is a vet student and he looked at her yesterday and is also highly suspicious of viral arthritis, so we will be looking into this further
Will post pictures and video tomorrow, but here are her xrays.
They're not super helpful as I was wrestling her while taking them, so positioning was difficult but you get an idea. In both xrays the affected leg is extended
One hock. Does not look like that. And heat is one of the first tell tale signs of infection, either systemic which presents as a fever or localized, such as a warm hock which she doesn't have. Systemic infection, which is a result of untreated tendon sheath infection, causes depression, fever...
I'm aware that tetracycline wouldn't help a joint or joint sheath infection. However in my precious replies I stated that the swelling and lameness in her hocks started suddenly and she didn't have a fever. Also that this has been ongoing for weeks and there was no initial trauma to that leg at...
She does not have an infection, it was a sudden, acute lameness presenting with swelling but no heat or fever, and has been persistent over the course of a month. An infection would have undoubtedly killed her by now, or at least caused a decrease in appetite. The antibiotics she was on was for...
I can get some video tomorrow and upload it. She is losing condition (losing weight) which is why I am giving scratch in her regular feed and crushed grains, I want readily available and easy to digest fats so she can put weight on. She rarely eats the crushed grains and sticks to the scratch...
I will look into those for sure. She is still able to pick her oyster shells out of her feed. She picks out what she wants from her feed, and as I said she usually leaves the crushed grain, so she consumes probably 80% ration, 15% whole grain (want to give it to her to help her keep body...
Not sure of her exact age, but my guess is somewhere between 1 and 2 years? Her diet consists of about 30% crushed grain (peas, wheat, barley, canola), 30% commercial layer ration, 20% whole grain (scratch) and 10% or less oyster shells, she usually leaves most of her crushed grain and eats the...
About 3 weeks ago, my adult laying hen cut her toe on something. We cleaned it and bandaged it, but the next day or so it looked infected so we started her on antibiotics. This was on her left foot. She was with the other chickens until she was started on antibiotics, but the day we started her...