Are there photos of spraddle?

[tara7815]

I'm trying to determine if that is what is going on with my chick. I saw the photo of the bandaid trick and that chick was very obviously spraddle - is it possible for it to not be quite that obvious?

 

[AmyBella]

Do you have any pictures that you can post? Also, how old is the chick? What kind of bedding is it on? I am not sure if there are "mild" cases of spaddle leg, but with more information I bet someone else will know!

 

[tara7815]

She is 6 days old today.
I picked her up yesterday from the fair.
I can't seem to get a good picture of what she's doing.
She will stand up if I put her in a standing position.
She will last a few seconds - sway a bit.. and plop down.
By the looks of it she plops to the left - it reminds me of when my knee gives out and that side of me just plops down.

when I put her in front of the water in a standing position she stands there and she does drink.
But when she is in the main brooder area with her buddies she doesn't walk over to the water.

I sprinkled her feed around her and she will lie there and eat it. So she IS eating and drinking - but if left to her own devices I don't think she'd walk over and find the water

They are in a rubber made tote that is lined with a thick layer of shavings.

Also I noticed that she sort of will lie a little to the side with one leg out just a lil bit.

If you pick her up and put her in your hand - she sits.. but if you place her in a standing position - she will stand - but not for long - she instantly goes to a resting position with hardly any weight on her left leg.

I'm worried she has an injured left leg - that is how it looks to me from the completely uneducated perspective.

I might be able to take a video later tonight of exactly what she's doing so you can see it.

Also her buddies do peck at her when they are actively awake and bored - so every hour or so I seperate her - put her in front of the water and sprinkle some feed in front of her. She seems happy with that and takes a nap - then after about 20 minutes she starts peepign to join them - I put her back with them and they all snuggle up and go to sleep together - but when they all wake up with all their energy she seems to get beat up - I give her some space again to eat and drink on her own and rest and then repeat. Am I doing the wrong thing? I'm so new to this.

Also - she DOES seem very alert during her awake times - just not moving around a lot - but she reacts to me talking to her - her head never stops bobbing around - and she is peeping up a storm.

I'd love any advice and just know that I need all the advice I can get because I'm so new to this chicken thing but I'm really trying to learn and do the right thing.

 

[AmyBella]

Hmmm, since she is getting picked on, you might want to separate her from the others until she is better. Maybe put another chick in w/her for company... a nice one, not an aggressive pecker!

I found this link and thought that it had some pretty good advice...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=154761&p=1


"Hello

I am fairly new to chickens but have worked at a vet for years. I recently was given a buff orpington chick that came from the hatchery with a bum leg. She would just hold the leg straight out to the side fully extended and sleep with the leg sticking out to the side. We could pop the hip back into place but her hip socket is so shallow the leg would pop right back out. Here is a link to my post/inquiry that show what her leg was doing

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=156128

We treated it like spraddles since we dont have anything to loose and figured it was worth a shot. If you think there is something wrong with the hip then there isn't a whole lot that splinting will help and trying to wrap the leg in place against the body could just be tricky. There is a good page on BYC somewhere that has lots of pics for treating legs with spraddles and here is the other page I came across first:

http://www.poultryhelp.com/spraddle.html

Even though only one of my chicks legs was affected we still treated it like spraddles but can already tell a difference and we just wrapped her leg this morning. Good luck and keep us posted !!!!


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So, I guess if it was my chick I would look it over very carefully (it's hard because they squirm so much!) and try to figure out the best way to splint and support the bad leg.

Are the toes on the bad leg curled up? That can be an indication of a nutritional deficiency.

 

[CelticMoon1]

Quote:
Sounds exactly like a spraddle chicken I had. You may have seen a picture of a chicken where both legs were affected, but they can also have one functioning leg and one that sticks out (which might be considered a "milder" case).

Mine would mostly lie there, and would flap around managing to move one leg fine but not the other it looked really bad. If I held her I could manipulate her leg in place and she would stand fine in my hand, but as soon as she moved it would "pop" out again.

One reason I've heard for this condition is incubator problems. I know a lot of people splint legs like that with good results, it should be done as soon as possible if you're going to do it.

Edited to say here's a how-to site:
http://www.poultryhelp.com/spraddle.html

 

[tara7815]

She's done a TON better today. Still struggling but I've seen more moving around -less being picked on and she's making her way to the water and food on her own now! Very happy.

 

[AmyBella]

I'm glad to hear that she's better. Did you put a band-aid brace on her?