Hi there, I have a 6 month old chicken that is limping /not using one of her legs and it is swollen. She has been this way for about a week now. I examined the area and it looked like there might have been a minor lesion in the skin so I have been soaking in epsom salt bath and wrapping. Does anyone have any advice or know what this could be?
Thank you very much!
Welcome to BYC. Her foot looks really swollen and curled under in the picture, and with the other foot in the background hard to tell a lot about. Could you possibly submit 1 or 2 more pictures? Are there any scabs or swollen spots on the bottom of her foot pads or in between the toes on top of the foot? Are your roosts high? Are the toes curled under most of the time, or can she move them? An injury to the foot can cause swelling or redness, but baterial infection from bumblefoot infection or mycoplasma synovitis (MS) infection may cause awelling as well. With MS, there usually will be bilateral swelling of the ankle and hock joints.
Thank you so much for your response. It doesn't look like her toes are swollen to me, just this spot on her leg. I also don't see any spots on the bottoms of her feet that I thought would indicate bumblefoot. Please see attached photos
Oh and the roosts are around 18 inches high. I can't really tell if she curls her toes under or not because she has just been hopping on one leg and holding the other in the air
I am stumped on what may be wrong. It looks to be in between the ankle and hock joint, so probably not a mycoplasma infection. Do you have ants around the coop that might be biting her? Or some other insect bite? The stinking thing is the pock swollen skin with the black scales. Look around for insects in the coop area. Permethrin is what I use to spray the coop for insects, and the spray or powder is safe for chickens.
Thank you very much, I will try an insect spray and hope that works. I haven't noticed ants in the coop but there could definitely be other smaller insects biting her