Baron saw the Vet yesterday. He was so good for the two hour car ride (each way!) though he kept trying to roost on my arm. All 6 lbs of him! With a pointy keel no less. Eek. I convinced him several times that my lap was the best bet.
The vet (licensed avian specialist, sees chickens regularly) indicated, after we carefully discussed flock history, that she does not see this problem as being neurological and is inconsistent with what we (both) expect to see from Marek's. Not that Marek's follows any rules, but at this point it seems more likely that there was an injury. She said that he was treating the leg as if he had a fracture, and she's seen other chickens do this same thing when they had a fracture somewhere in their legs.
So, we had a series of x-rays done on him, and they revealed no injury, to our surprise. He had no swelling either.
He seemed tender when she was putting pressure on his knee, so she thinks it might be an injury of the soft tissue around the knee joint. We brought home more Metacam (pain reliever and anti-inflammatory) and I'm giving him 12 hour doses of it.
So far he is about the same, though a bit more sleepy (the Metacam might be making him feel this way). We hope to see some improvement in the next week.
