Chicken with injured leg

[tori852]

One of our 10 week old Icelandic roosters has an injured left leg. We noticed him limping severely on Saturday and on Sunday he wasn't able to stand up to eat and drink from the feeders. Upon close examination, he shows no signs of injury. No sores or blood and no broken bones as far as we could tell. He doesn't show any signs of pain when the leg is moved around either so we're assuming its a bad sprain. When I did some research on "chickens with injured legs" most recommended isolation so we confined him to an animal crate in the coop with pine shaving bedding, food, and water. However, he keeps knocking the food and water over since he's so awkward on his feet and the area is small. We didn't want to give him too much space though since we thought it would impede healing if he's walking around too much... So my questions. Do you think confining him is the best coarse of action? Any guesses on what could be wrong with his leg? How much space should he have in the "sick bay"? Is there anything else we can do to help get him better? It's worth noting that when we hatched eggs, we ended up with 9 roosters and 7 hens so we will need to get rid of roosters anyway, but we would still like to heal him up of course. Thank you, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Eggcessive]

You might try making him a chicken sling with food and water placed in front of him. Injuries are common with cockerels, but at his age I would also think about Mareks disease asa possibility with his limp and awkward walking. Does his foot or leg appear numb or paralyzed? Does he hold the leg up or drag/try to walk on it? Vitamins containing riboflavin could be of help in case of deficiency-- poultry vitamins, B complex tablets, but check labels for riboflavin.

 

[tori852]

We decided to move him into a larger container which he seems to like better. Its hard to say if the leg appears numb... on Saturday when he was walking he would hold it up closer to his body before he placed it on the ground and when he put weight on it, it didn't seem to hold his body right. It bowed a bit at the knee joint (is it called a knee on chickens?) but his other leg seemed fine. On Sunday, he couldn't walk much at all. He came out of the coop with the other chickens in the morning, but when he got to the food dish he had trouble stand up to eat. He had to sit down and peck off the ground and he stayed sitting down while the other chickens went back and forth into the coop. When we hold him up in the air and his legs hang, the left one definitely "sits" different. I'm wondering if he like twisted the joint or something? I just looked up Mareks... I REALLY hope its not that... "symptoms: Paralysis of legs, wings and neck, Loss of weight, Grey iris or irregular pupil, Vision impairment, Skin around feather follicles raised and roughened". His eyes are bright and alert, his feathers and skin are normal, he eats and drinks readily, and his wings and neck are fine. Do you think I should I keep him away from the other chickens? He's located in the garage right now.

 

[tori852]

Any other thoughts?

 

[Eggcessive]

He doesn't need to be isolated from the other chickens unless they start to pick on him or keep him from food and water. If he has Mareks, the others would have been exposed already, and at the same time. Mareks has 4 different types of symptoms, and they may only exhibit 1 or 2 symptoms. The paralysis of one or both legs or wings may be all that is seen. He may eat better being around the others, but if you have to separate him, a dog crate with his own food and water would be good. Food and water needs to be close. Some use chicken slings to get them upright and in front of food and water. Google chicken slings, and you will find pictures of homemade ones. If he has suffered a sprain or broken bone, it can take several weeks to heal. If you have a vet, xrays could be done, but that is pretty expensive. I really hope as well that it is not Mareks. Let us know how he is doing in a day or two.

 

[tori852]

He's sitting like this now. You can see his legs pointing in opposite directions and the toes are curled... his legs are definitely paralyzed. He's not eating very much and can't walk at all. Apparently this splits positioning is very characteristic of Marek's but it can also be a bunch of other things (according to this article: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq.66077/). We're going to keep him separate from the others for now since we don't really know what he has.

Soooo we're kind of at a loss on what to do. I found this thread (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/blood-test-for-mareks.1125719/) where a person had a chicken of similar age with pretty much these exact symptoms. They gave vitamins to her, and she recovered but the paralysis came back again and she died. Apparently it was Marek's... so basically even if ours gets better, it'll come back and eventually get him? If he has Marek's is there any way to know for sure? Because if he has it, the flock has it which means if we hatch more chicks or get pullets, they might get it and we can't give any current birds away. Correct my please if I'm wrong. Then there's also the thought of maybe its a vitamin deficiency. If so, how do we treat this? I've read about B vitamins but what type and what dosage? The other chickens have no problems though so does that mean that we can rule out that possibility? Sorry for all the questions, we just don't want him to suffer. Thank you Eggcessive for your comments.

 

[Eggcessive]

It sounds more like Mareks today. I am sorry. But I would keep treating with vitamins, just in case. Make sure that he can reach food and water. A small number of chickens will get better, then later in life, suffer a relapse or tumors with Mareks. There is a PCR test for Mareks, but the best way to diagnose it is with a necropsy after death. Refigerate the body, and send it in to your state vet or poultry lab. I would contact them now, so that you will know how to go about shipping or taking the body in. Not all of your chickens may be doomed if it is Mareks. Are they all the same breed? Some breeds can be more resistant to Mareks. Mareks does remain in the environment for a long time. Many people with Mareks breed the birds they have that do not become ill, or breed for resistance. There are many threads and ongoing ones to read here if you do a search. Rebascora posts a lot here, and she is a good person to learn from.

 

[tori852]

That's what I was afraid of... well if he's not going to ever fully heal it would probably be kinder to euthanize him. We don't want him to suffer and his quality of life right now is not good. We'll give him a bit longer and probably try vitamins though. What exact kind and what dosage? We don't have any right now but we could definitely go pick some up tomorrow. If it is indeed Marek's like we suspect, I really hope none of the other's get it. I feel so bad for the one. They are all Icelandic chickens, all the same age: 10 weeks old, hatched on the day of the eclipse. Icelandics are a landrace that originated in Iceland. From research, they do not have any particular resistance to Marek's, but they can definitely be bred for resistance which is what we will try to do. If we're going to do that, he will have to go because he's obviously not resistant. I will continue researching. And I'll see about where I can go to get a necropsy done.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi
I'm sorry but that is as classic a symptom of Marek's Disease as you are likely to ever see. Most cases are not nearly so obvious. Taking into consideration his age and your over population of cockerels which is a stressor that often triggers an outbreak and the fact that Marek's is such a common and widespread virus which is very easily contracted and I would say that you would be burying your head in the sand to believe it might be anything else. That said it is not all doom and gloom as I have had birds be like that with it for a couple of days and then fully recover as quickly as they deteriorated and be fine for a year before their next outbreak. Unfortunately you will be very lucky if this is your only casualty to it. I hear what you are saying about breeding for resistance to it but you need to keep them for some considerable time to know whether they are infected or not.... some don't show any obvious symptoms for a year or more but having all those excess cockerels in your flock is likely to stress them and the pullets and likely trigger another one or two to exhibit symptoms. Your best bet might be to build a bachelor pad for the boys now before they start developing hormones and pestering the girls, as that will at least limit the pullets' stress factor.
You may need to consider your goals in breeding them too unless it is purely to increase your own flock as you really do not want to be selling birds that have been exposed to Marek's and whilst you might be breeding for resistance, it takes a long time before you know whether you are being successful, because the virus can lie dormant for months and then crop up again.

Good luck with them and I hope you have one of the milder strains. There are many of us living with Marek's in our flock's so don't feel you are alone in this. In my experience the casualties to it do diminish as the years go by so that initial outbreak will hopefully be the worst you will experience. Unfortunately, at 10 weeks you are almost certainly in the early stages of it, so you may be in for a rough ride during the next few months.

If you have any queries that you think I may be able to help with, please feel free to ask.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[tori852]

Thank you for you both for your replies. So we definitely have Marek's in our flock... it is what it is at this point. I guess I was just holding onto the possibility that it *might* be something else but they really do have it. Do you recommend reducing our number of cockerels which will therefore reduce stress on everyone else? Building a bachelor pad is not going to be an option for our set up. I think we're going to go ahead and euthanize the one that's sick right now. We have too many cockerels anyway and he wasn't one of the ones we planned on keeping, he was always rude to the hens. If we have our eyes on the good roos right now, the one's that are polite, nice, and friendly, will their personalities stay? Or will they act different once their hormones set in? And I guess breeding for resistance is easier said than done... but not impossible. If we were considering hatching new eggs from another source in the late spring, would that be a bad idea? Or should we just hatch eggs from the hens we have left by then so that we might continue the breeding for resistance?