7 week old chicken with a limp leg.

[ghlear10]

i recently started raising chickens. on march 28 we purchased 6 chicks from our local supplier. we ended up with one white silkie who was slower , smaller , and seemed more timid then the rest. over the last week she shows signs of having sprayed leg, everything i have read says to tie one leg to the other which we have tried but with the feathers on her leg it makes it very difficult..and she gets very verbal with me when i try to get them tied together which makes me feel like im hurting her. and even when we tie them together her foot still points outward. the only thing that seems to work at all is a pipe cleaner which is on her now but she seems to have a harder time getting around with it on. im not sure what to do . she is not developing feathers like the others and just lays around most of the time. can you give me suggestions as to what to do for her to fix her leg and make her comfortable and mobile? i also was wondering how long before her leg should get better. also is it normal for there to be no sign of it untill later ? most stories i have read says it was obvious from day one and with her she seemed fine untill a few weeks after bringing her home?

 

[Uniontown Poultry]

I had a naked neck chick that had something similar with his leg. When I tied the legs together (hobbled him), the foot was still splayed out and twisted. I made a "shoe" for him by taping both beet to a popsicle stick and building a chick chair for him, so he could eat and drink and stay off the floor while the leg straightened out and grew in the correct position. I put a friend in the box with him. The friend was constantly eating all his food and drinking his water, climbing into the chair with him. He was in that chair for 12 days, with 30-minutes of daily freedom-time, when he was removed from the chair (but no other bindings removed) and placed on the floor with his friend, and able to hop around and be righted by me when he fell over (since he was not able to get up on his own). After 12 days or so, he could walk, but it wasn't a pretty walk. He could get around on his own, he could keep up with the others, but it was not a normal-looking gait. Of course, he could have not gone through the 12 days of hell and ended up dying, so I figured it worked out in the end. He and his ugly walk made it to adulthood.

You can find lots of info out there on how to build a chick chair (I used one of those disposable tupperwares), to make shoes and hobbles if you are interested. For feather legged breeds, sometimes it's a good idea to use a sponge, cut like a dog bone, with slits in the knobby ends, and slip their feet through the slits, letting the shaft part of the bone shape keep the legs apart. Hope this helps.