First of all, thank you to all of you at Backyard Chickens who have posted about broken legs in the past. Those posts have been very helpful in getting us to this point. However, I am hoping for some more input to get us the rest of the way.
About 4 weeks ago, one of our two-year-old hens broke her leg. It was a clear and obvious break. Thanks to help from this website, we decided to segregate her, and disinfect, pad, splint, and vetwrap her leg and hope for the best. She remained alert, ate and drank, has been easy to work with, etc. We continued to monitor her and regularly changed her bandage/splint. She has been the model patient and has even been laying eggs on a regular basis.
It is now 4 weeks later and I am wondering... At what point should we leave the splint/wrap off? And, at what point do we reintroduce her back to the flock?
We try to get her out and moving around a couple hours each day and closely observe her in her interactions with her free-ranging flockmates. She is slowly starting to put some weight on the leg and would possibly use it more if not for the splint. She also appears to have maintained her spot in the pecking order and is not afraid to put some of the other hens in their place. Yet, we are worried about letting her back in the coop for fear that she might try to roost and fall, or have to deal with our rooster "doing what roosters do" and re-injure herself.
We definitely do not want her to re-break/re-injure her leg by returning her to the flock too soon, but it is clear that she wants to be with her flockmates (she "talks" to them all the time and seems antsy to get out of her enclosure and join them).
My initial thought is to unwrap the leg and see how she does for a couple weeks, then let her free-range during the day with the flock and keep her separate at night for a couple more weeks, and then have her with the flock full-time by 8 weeks post-injury.
Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated?
About 4 weeks ago, one of our two-year-old hens broke her leg. It was a clear and obvious break. Thanks to help from this website, we decided to segregate her, and disinfect, pad, splint, and vetwrap her leg and hope for the best. She remained alert, ate and drank, has been easy to work with, etc. We continued to monitor her and regularly changed her bandage/splint. She has been the model patient and has even been laying eggs on a regular basis.
It is now 4 weeks later and I am wondering... At what point should we leave the splint/wrap off? And, at what point do we reintroduce her back to the flock?
We try to get her out and moving around a couple hours each day and closely observe her in her interactions with her free-ranging flockmates. She is slowly starting to put some weight on the leg and would possibly use it more if not for the splint. She also appears to have maintained her spot in the pecking order and is not afraid to put some of the other hens in their place. Yet, we are worried about letting her back in the coop for fear that she might try to roost and fall, or have to deal with our rooster "doing what roosters do" and re-injure herself.
We definitely do not want her to re-break/re-injure her leg by returning her to the flock too soon, but it is clear that she wants to be with her flockmates (she "talks" to them all the time and seems antsy to get out of her enclosure and join them).
My initial thought is to unwrap the leg and see how she does for a couple weeks, then let her free-range during the day with the flock and keep her separate at night for a couple more weeks, and then have her with the flock full-time by 8 weeks post-injury.
Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated?
