Chicken fine two hours ago, now can't walk.

[SampyArctica]

Basically what the title says.

Our Polish roo was fine as of roughly two - three hours ago but now he can barely grip with his left foot and can't really walk. His wing also dangles out but I think maybe for balance...does anyone have any idea what we should be looking for? We can't find any bites, no mites, nothing in his foot seems to be broken or fractured...I just don't know what to do and we spent $300 on two other animals at the vets yesterday so we're flat broke for the next week.

Any ideas? We've tried getting him to perch, but he only really grips with his right foot and his left sort of just...sits there loosely, not actually gripping.

 

[SampyArctica]

Video, trying to see how he walked/limped. He really didn't seem to want to put weight on that foot.

 

[Fancychooklady]

It does look like he has injured it. They can bruise themselves when jumping down from the perch. Check the bottom of his feet for bumble foot. Look for swelling way up into the feather line. This link covers most foot/ leg problems. Poor little guy. I would be inclined to separate him so he doesn't get chased around by the others. A warm Epsom salt soak can be quite soothing.

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

 

[SampyArctica]

Thank you very much for the link, I'm going through it now!

He definitely doesn't have bumblefoot, we just checked our whole 'flock' for it as one of our girls is currently being treated for it. We already separate him and the girl he was raised with at night and keep them inside the house overnight but maybe we'll keep them separated the next couple of days too...but you definitely think that it's injured though, not some sort of disease like (dare I say it...) the 'M' word...? I've been doing some reading quickly in the meantime and many other threads have jumped straight to it, so I may be just scaring myself but then I don't have experience with it, so...

We did find him lying down next to a small chick run/guinea pig hutch though, that one of our older girls sprained her foot on last year...

 

[Fancychooklady]

I came home one day to find my roo hanging upside down with his foot caught in the metal strapping of an outdoor chair, he almost died. If he had freed himself he would still have been limping around , only I wouldn't know why. Anything is possible with chooks. I would just keep him quiet , let him rest the leg and spoil him with treats. Don't even think about mareks at this stage. He may well have twisted his leg in the wire of the hutch. Btw nice looking polish my friend has one just like him. Think positive!

 

[SampyArctica]

Thanks for your advice, we'll definitely be keeping a close eye on him! And thanks, he's always the favourite of anyone who comes to visit.

 

[SampyArctica]

Tears running down my face as I type this, unfortunately he passed away sometime overnight. We're absolutely devastated but now I'm worrying about the rest of our flock. We immediately took the girl he was raised with (who we keep him in overnight with) back inside the house so she wouldn't get near our other girls in case it was something contagious. She seems to be fine though, other than she was VERY close with Dori, our Polish roo, and would panic anytime they were out of eyesight of one another, so you can imagine that she's been calling out for him and searching around inside for him ever since we took his body away from her, her calls are absolutely heartbreaking but otherwise, she does seem alright.

Does anybody have any ideas at all of what could have happened?

 

[Fancychooklady]

So sorry you lost your lovely boy. There is no way of knowing for sure without necropsy . Contaminated feed, injury or illness can all show similar symptoms .
Keep an eye on the others , here is a link with some symptoms to be looking for.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[Nambroth]

I'm so sorry for your loss!!

Do I understand correctly, that he went from totally normal, mobile, active... to limping and then deceased within 24 hours?

Please forgive this question, as I don't mean to insult. Some people interact more with their chickens on a daily basis than others, so I mean no offense: are you confident he wasn't showing any symptoms prior to when you noticed him limping?

I have a few thoughts:
My first suspect, just because of how rapidly he went from 'okay' to 'dead' is that this has the potential to be botulism or mold toxins. If enough botulism toxin is consumed it can cause lameness, paralysis, and death rapidly. Is there absolutely any way he could have had access to rotting vegetation, a compost pile, stagnant puddles or a pond, a decomposing animal carcass (I know this sound horrible but some people live in rural wooded areas where this is a possibility)?

Is his feed fresh and mold-free? Any chance he got into something that was somehow missed?

It looks pretty arid where you are but I am admittedly ignorant to your weather patterns this time of year!!

If the above is ruled out, can you tell me... did he have a vaulted skull? Some polish do have this.
Vaulted skull (A) vs. "normal" skull (B):


Birds with vaulted skull are somewhat more prone to head injury, as the bone is sometimes thinner there, or even has holes in it. Could he have hit his head? A brain injury with swelling will often present as lameness, paralysis, sometimes wry neck.... and if he had too much swelling or injury, it could have done him in. I am suggesting this possibility, again, due to how quickly he passed away.

He didn't have any other symptoms after he started limping, did he? Any usual droppings, or vomiting, seizures?

Most diseases that can cause these symptoms usually don't cause such rapid death. Unless he was hiding other symptoms from you and had an ongoing problem. Marek's disease can present in the way you showed in the video, and can cause rapid death, but I have not read of any chicken passing away within 15 hours of the first symptom!! A few days, yes, but not hours. I would not rule it out, but it seems very, very rapid.

Erysipelas is a fairly uncommon disease but it can cause lameness, lack of balance, and death within 24 hours. Some info: http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/poultry/erysipelas/overview_of_erysipelas_in_poultry.html
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1257/back-to-basics-pasteurella-and-erysipelas

Can you tell us about your flock history? Any new birds brought in within the last 6 months? Any other deaths, problems? How long have you had your chickens and this roo?

 

[SampyArctica]

Thank you for the replies guys, it's eating me up that we don't know WHY this happened. I'd love to be able for a necropsy to be done, but we'd only be able to do it ourselves as we have no money right now and though we wouldn't know what we'd be looking for, I also don't think either myself nor my partner could bring ourselves to do it. We've put his body in a plastic bag, wrapped that in a few other plastic bags, and put them in the freezer. We're moving to a property in seven days and we'd like to bury him there.

As for flock history: we had six chickens including Dori, three pairs that were raised together - Dori and his 'sister' were the youngest at roughly 24 weeks old and the newest chicken additions about five and a half months ago, but the newest fowl addition was a rescue Muscovy (duck) drake we've had since February who was given the all-clear by an avian vet in April. He doesn't interact with the chickens though, and they generally don't interact with him and they're kept in separate coops. So in order - we got the first pair in June/July last year, the next pair were bought in late October, Dori and Mustard (his 'sister') were bought in late December last year and our duck was rescued late February.

No other deaths, this being our first is probably also why we're taking it so hard. Other problems currently in the flock though is just one other chicken with a non-surgical case of bumblefoot who was just started on a course of general antibiotics two days ago.

Their environment varies as we have a small bushy area with shrubs, trees and bamboo that they like scratching through, some 'garden' beds (marigolds and a couple of money plants are in it only), some compacted dirt that is around their coop and then a patch of green grass (which is technically part of our front yard) all in different areas around the house. As we do have a duck, he also has a pool and so the area around that can get pretty muddy - but yesterday Dori and Mustard seemed to be spending the most amount of time down only one side of the yard, which is where garden beds are - although we did take him and some of the others out to the front yard at one point. We had the small guinea pig hutch that I've mentioned in previous posts over some of the plants to keep the chickens from eating them, and we found Dori laying next to them yesterday afternoon.

But he definitely didn't seem to have any symptoms earlier in the afternoon, as when we took them out to the front yard to be on grass and also eat the chick weed that's growing there, I was watching them all carefully to make sure none tried to escape and fly onto the road, and he was pecking and scratching around with the rest of the flock normally. Once I'd brought them back inside the backyard, I went to hang some laundry and do some study, and it was about two to three hours later when we were rounding up everyone to be put back into their coop, or to be brought inside that we found Dori next to the garden bed and discovered he couldn't walk. One thing that struck me after finding him this morning though, is that right before being herded back into the yard, Dori was standing in an area that I'd seen a cane toad in about...maybe four nights previously and then forgotten all about until now. Cane toads are highly toxic and secrete a deadly venom from glands on their backs - is it at all possible that some of this MAY have gotten onto a stray blade of grass or something which Dori ate...? I've had the chickens out on this grass in previous days but after seeing the cane toad, but none had been in that area (very small corner of the yard, maybe only 10cm by 20cm).

So then this has caught up to when I began this thread and I took the video of us trying to see if he could walk at all, and exactly how he was limping...we couldn't find any bite marks or bruising on his skin at the top of his leg, I felt his entire leg and each individual toe and nothing seemed to be broken or fractured, but he couldn't extend it out by himself - it was actually like he'd lost most of the control over that leg, as though he was able to kind of limp on it, he couldn't stretch out his toes, he wasn't able to perch/grip with that foot, he wasn't really moving it at all. After this thread, we thought maybe it had been a bad sprain, given his location next to the guinea pig hutch and the fact we'd had another chicken sprain her foot once before jumping off the exact same thing, who now walks perfectly but...when we went to let them out this morning, he was dead.

The instant we realised, I scooped up his sister and ran back into the house with her to get her away from the other chickens, granted I could barely see where I was going 'cause I was crying so hard. My partner soon followed with Dori's body still in the dog carrier that they sleep in at night. We've recently (past month or so) had to keep Dori inside at night because we're not allowed roosters where we live, but are moving to a small acreage in exactly a week - so we were hoping to keep him quiet enough in the mornings until we could get to the larger property. Because we didn't want him to get lonely, we kept both him and his sister together in the same dog carrier. So this means that she was kept with him all night until this morning and was with him when he passed and had been kept with him after it happened. Because she was so close physically to him, that's why she's now back inside the house and away from the backyard girls. She's not limping, her eyes respond well to light, her comb and wattle colour are the same pinkish/red they've been the past...as long as I can remember (she's not yet laying), she seems very active as she's only just settled down on the back of my chair from running around the house calling out for Dori...she was panting about ten minutes ago, but she's not doing that currently as I type...I do think she is stressed from not being able to find him though, as I mentioned before, each of them would freak out any time they were out of the others eye shot - they always had to be together or they would panic.

We've checked the other girls, they all are acting as normal.

One thing that caught my eye with that last link posted was this though: "At necropsy, a generalized darkening of the skin or various sized areas of diffuse darkening is common." So we haven't/can't get one done, but when I went through his feathers down to his skin earlier before posting that he had passed, his skin did look darker and his wattles/comb were a very deep and dark...maybe maroon? Burgundy? Some may call it a blue, I guess...could this be a sign...? His body was stiff when we found him, and his body had lost all warmth, but I wouldn't say that his skin was very cold either.

I didn't check for the shape of his skull though...would it be okay if I check in maybe an hour or so? I just...I'm not sure if I can look at his body right now...

I did check their feed, but there was no sign of any mould - they'd gotten new feed yesterday and there wasn't even any dirt in their container. I just don't know what to do.