Chicken with broken leg. Please advice.

[horsejody]

I would keep on trying and give hime a chance.
Good Luck,
Jody

 

[VanSintjan]

I will try as long as he tries and he doen't seem to be in to much pain. He has figured out how to sit up with walls of the box as support, he drinks from a teaspoon every secon - third hour during the day and he picks the ood from my fingers. He talks with the other chicks outside his box and I have arranged so he can see them through a litle grid. I manage to get sme boild yolk in him a couple of times a day and he sleeps when the others sleep. Since I have vacation I try to follow his rythm.
I don't think the legs are really broken. I think the hook joint was not strong enough yet to hold the body. On Saturday we will change the splint and I will see if I can make it less straight to give him a little more mobility. He has managed to stand up on his splinted legs with support from the walls. I will let you know how it goes and post a couple of pitures if I can.

 

[VanSintjan]

Since it began to be more and more difficult to make him eat I brought him to our ordinary vet yesterday evening, who I trust the most. He said that this is caused by a nervproblem in the brain. The chicken is partially lame in the lower legs and when the legs don't work there is to much preassure on the hook joint. We could probably heal the joint but not the lameness so we chosed to take him away and he had a shot at the vet. It feels good though that he wasn't in any pain during our treatment since he was lame.

This is a known complication in small chickens and is here called "swim feet" in direct translation. The vet did not know if this is caused by inheritence or during the development of the egg.

I will not ask my neighbour -vet about the birds again. I will stick to the good one we have even if it is a bit to go.

Thanks for all the help and support.

 

[CUDA]

Yep, a genetic defect as I stated before. After you have hatched as many as I have, you learn to just cull these right off the bat, as they are substandard chicks, and will not ever be good strong birds. There is nothing you did wrong hatching, even under the best circumstances this will occur. If your hen was to hatch a chick like this out herself, she will cull it for you. It's just part of nature.