Broken leg healing plan

Thepastagirls

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Hi all.
My girl tortellini got stood on by my horse and broke her leg. It was all very traumatising. She’s an ex battery that we got mid December last year.
It’s been 2.5 weeks since the break - we took her to the vet and it’s been professionally splinted. She got meloxicam and is currently on box rest. I let her out every day for about half an hour whilst I clean her pen so she can get some sun on her back and be with the other hens. To start with she wasn’t able to put any weight on it, but towards the end of last week she started to put it down. Now she’s able to put weight and is ‘walking’ with quite a limp and is standing up a lot. The splint is still on.
My question is going forward - how much exercise is beneficial before it becomes a problem? I’m wondering if I should start letting her out for increasing periods of time to strengthen her leg. Also wanted to see how long before I should be letting her back out with the other girls and taking off the splint?
Many thanks
 

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Your vet should have given instructions on how much activity and how long to keep the splint on. Broken bones can take 5 weeks to heal and form a calas or hardening of the bone. Not all chicken fractures will heal properly. I would limit her activity to standing and walking some, and keep her inside a dog crate or pen near the other chickens, so they keep familiar with her. Good luck, I hope she recovers. In this link, there are pages of info on how well birds heal from fractures:
https://theiwrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Duerr_Splinting_Manual_2010.pdf
 
Your vet should have given instructions on how much activity and how long to keep the splint on. Broken bones can take 5 weeks to heal and form a calas or hardening of the bone. Not all chicken fractures will heal properly. I would limit her activity to standing and walking some, and keep her inside a dog crate or pen near the other chickens, so they keep familiar with her. Good luck, I hope she recovers. In this link, there are pages of info on how well birds heal from fractures:
https://theiwrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Duerr_Splinting_Manual_2010.pdf
thanks :) We had to take her to a vet we hadn't been to before as our vet is half an hour away and we wouldn't have made it there by closing time. He's a small animal vet and wanted to euthanise her as he said she's just a chicken and only 20% chance of recovery. I wanted to give her that 20% chance so asked him to splint which he did and he said we'd see within a week or two if it's starting to heal. I'm sure it is, so was just wondering if anybody had any advice in terms of their own experiences. thanks so much, I'll read through that document :)
 

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