Can someone tell me what's wrong with this hen (pics)

[ronjsteele1]

Hi,

We have an 8 month old red sex link (red star) hen. She looks healthy and doesn't appear to have anything else wrong with her that we can see. A few days ago she started limping. By the second day she was dragging her left foot. Now the leg seems paralyzed. We have checked out a number of chicken diseases and she doesn't appear to have them (Maerk's being the big concern). We have pulled her from our flock and are letting her be safely by herself but we cannot figure out what's wrong with her. She is not laying but she appears to be pooping fine. As a pre-caution we put her in a warm bath last night to see if she was egg bound if that would help but it doesn't appear to have done anything. Today, she is standing on her leg but still her toes are bent underneath.

I've attached pictures. The one of her head is so you can see her feathers and all look real healthy. It's just this foot that we can't figure out. She's not walking around. If she does, she hops and raises this foot. We can't see any obvious signs of injury and no bumblefoot. She doesn't seem to be eating *as* much, but she is eating an drinking. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Eggcessive]

She has curled toe paralysis. It is caused by either a vitamin deficiency (riboflavin or vitamin B2) or Mareks disease, but I believe in one leg only , it may be Mareks. I would immediately start her on poultry vitamins in the water, and if you have a B complex tablet that includes all B's, I would crush it and put it on her food until you get the vitamins from the feed store. She may well have Mareks, but I would try vitamins, and then do some reading on Mareks. Here are some some threads with good links to read in the threads:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
http://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/avian-atlas/search/disease/502

 

[ronjsteele1]

Thank you! This has been great info (been reading off and on all day!). It's funny one of the sites mentions hypericum b/c we were using my rescue remedy which is arnica, hypericum, and ledum but it didn't seem to do be doing anything. Normally we notice a change within 24hrs. I made a hypericum only water and we started dosing it tonight. I also start dosing vitamins with added b's too. The info on Marek's is excellent. Thank you! We're going to see how she does doing this for a week and go from there. We're hoping we see steady improvement. We had a chicken that went lame once but not like this, and we were able to bring her back. Crossing our fingers we can with this beauty too.

THanks again!

 

[faceache]

I had a lavender pekin who started to limp slightly one day I brought her in to rest but she just seem to lose all feeling in her foot,she could move her leg and tried to itch her head but the foot didn't move,there was no sign of injury so I was hoping it as just a sprain,I gave her two weeks in the house with some aspirin but she didn't get any better I took her to the vets and she couldn't find anything so said it was nerve damage and that it was best to put her to sleep as eventually the foot would get sores and infected I took the vets advice but now wish I hadn't as she wasn't in pain,I feel I should have gave her more time but maybe I'm wrong :/