Good morning frawgs! I didn't drop off the face of the earth but feels like I have! Michaela's last day of school was yesterday. She's had events, awards, choir, softball(last game is tomorrow) something tonight also! Have been deep cleaning the house, cleaning up the property, her party's outside this Sunday after grad. but if it rains we move it in..getting all the preparations ready...throw in some Drs appointments and I'm swamped. Been falling into bed every night. It's just been an exhausting couple of weeks! Especially this last one! Haven't had no time to catch up..at this point I won't even try!! I hope your all well as well as your birds! Just want you to know I miss visiting and I'm thinking about you guys
Ok so after counting and weighing i now realize i was mistaken. My chick with the broken leg is not a meatie. She is one of my layer chicks, just has the same coloring as my Red Ranger. :/ So is a break this bad able to heal? My though was i just needed to kerp the bird alive a few more weeks....this will still be a fairly small bird in a few weeks. But because she is slower growing maybe she can heal?
If you can extend it, pad it, split it and tape it (no tape touching skin or feathers, only batting and splints) she may pull through. But you HAVE to get the broken ends near the right location, and in the right direction, and that takes traction. You have to have someone hold the bird while you grasp the top and bottom of the bone, pull gently until you feel mild resistance, test for interference when you rotate and if it's there, pull a wee little more, and rotate to the correct position. When you slowly release, the bone should stay where you set it. If it is correct, pad, splint, tape and wrap.
There is a possibility of rupturing a blood vessel along the bone during this exercise. If that happens, a bruise will immediately appear and she will most likely die soon afterward.
It can be done, and it can be successful. Since you know that it's not genetic, as long as she has functional mobility she can live a normal chicken life even if she ends up with a limp.
Good morning frawgs! I didn't drop off the face of the earth but feels like I have! Michaela's last day of school was yesterday. She's had events, awards, choir, softball(last game is tomorrow) something tonight also! Have been deep cleaning the house, cleaning up the property, her party's outside this Sunday after grad. but if it rains we move it in..getting all the preparations ready...throw in some Drs appointments and I'm swamped. Been falling into bed every night. It's just been an exhausting couple of weeks! Especially this last one! Haven't had no time to catch up..at this point I won't even try!! I hope your all well as well as your birds! Just want you to know I miss visiting and I'm thinking about you guys
It has been a long morning. Maybe you can see her, peeking from behind the tree, thing 1 is rather heart broken because daddy dared to go to work without her.
I had to hold her down long enough for him to drive away. She then ran out side and decided to hide behind the tree, waiting i think for him to return. It has been a long morning
If you can extend it, pad it, split it and tape it (no tape touching skin or feathers, only batting and splints) she may pull through. But you HAVE to get the broken ends near the right location, and in the right direction, and that takes traction. You have to have someone hold the bird while you grasp the top and bottom of the bone, pull gently until you feel mild resistance, test for interference when you rotate and if it's there, pull a wee little more, and rotate to the correct position. When you slowly release, the bone should stay where you set it. If it is correct, pad, splint, tape and wrap.
There is a possibility of rupturing a blood vessel along the bone during this exercise. If that happens, a bruise will immediately appear and she will most likely die soon afterward.
It can be done, and it can be successful. Since you know that it's not genetic, as long as she has functional mobility she can live a normal chicken life even if she ends up with a limp.
*Sigh* So i was again mistaken. I followed your advice, tried to pull her leg and find the break. But her leg is fine. I felt the whole thing, no break. It must be her hip, maybe disjointed? She can move the bad leg, seems not to pain her until i start pokeing at her hip, then she gets very upset.
Where i have my finger
The sling seemed to have helped her, she seems more active then when i first found her. Perhaps i will keep her in it and just let her out for a few hours every day. My question now is, if it is the hip, will laying an egg not be possible?
ETA: Not where i have my finger, wrong picture
Please study the leg anatomy and try to find out precisely where the issue is.
Broken femur will typically leave her semi-crippled, but she may compensate by using only one leg. Dislocated femur will leave lasting pain but can sometimes be reset. Try to see if the bone is broken or simply out of place. Young birds have relatively little muscle and are generally easy to probe.
Just quoting as an easy way to get back to where I was before typing, since I'll be doing it between test answers... Though with 3 and a half hours (or so) since the last post, I may not need to! (Now watch everyone start posting while I'm typing...)
First off, I know that this group is quite enabling, but I do need to bounce an idea (with background, of course--I always either over- or under-explain, right?
) off of someone, and I do actually need sensible feedback, not just "Yes, do it!" (Though I wouldn't exactly mind if, after consideration, that's the suggestion...)
The older Frawgs may remember that I'm in a neighborhood that's zoned to allow me to have 11 birds (I have 13
), with no roosters, quacking ducks (yep, says exactly that in the ordinance), or other similarly noisy birds--unless one of my daughters chooses to do poultry through 4H and registers the otherwise-contraband bird(s). However, the houses are close enough together that I haven't really pushed the girls towards poultry (besides, the birds are my hobby and I'd likely take over their animals anyway...). If I'd known when we bought this place that I'd get into chickens... Then again, at the time, we needed a place, this was almost the only place we qualified for (the other is just around the corner, actually, so same problems with a smaller lot...) and rent anywhere would be half again our mortgage (since we make just enough to not be able to qualify for subsidized rent--we're talking a few hundred a year).
Anyway...
When I was picking up some Flock Raiser (in hopes that my one egg that was showing something when I candled Monday night makes it...) I saw a lady I vaguely know from church ahead of me. Couldn't remember her name until after she'd left, so I didn't say anything, and where I was standing, she wouldn't've noticed me unless I had. I know she used to have/breed mules (may still, not sure--she's either a weathered 70s or a well-preserved 80s) and she does currently have at least 1 cow. She bought 2 dozen eggs, so she must not have chickens, right? I mean, 'tis egg season, after all! Now, I'd been playing with the idea of asking her or another lady that I know has livestock about arranging to keep birds there. But I'm shy and tend to overthink things (huge surprise there, I know
) I actually know the other lady better, but since I know she doesn't eat eggs (vegetarian, but not vegan--she does dairy and honey), there goes a bargaining chip...
So, what I'm asking is if I should see if D would be willing for me to keep poultry at her place, if I did all the work and bought all the feed, and offered eggs and pest control as land-use rent? Another acquaintance of mine, the one that first talked D into coming to church, works for her on weekends, mucking out the cow's space, and I'd probably ask her if she thought D would be open to such a proposal--I'm just wondering if it sounds reasonable to anyone else besides me before I even think to bring it up to non-chicken folks. (Keeping in mind that, all the way home from the feed store, thoughts of breeding, and trying to figure out if a mixed flock with an Ameraucana, Araucana, or CCL roo so that chicks could be sold as EE or OE depending on the hen would be better, or leaping into pure breds
) I know about where D lives--not too far from the building that our church is using while the church building is being built, which is not too far from where my girls will be going to do bucket calves this summer. So, realistically, I'd probably be there 2-3 times a week (so would need to invest in/rig up an automatic pop door).
Another thing to consider is that, since Mr. P is now working as an IA a the school our daughters attend, and he had yet more people just the other day assume he's still working with/for the ministry he's not been with for seven years now, he's talking about paying extra on the mortgage, selling the house, leaving the area, and buying some acreage so I can have poultry *squee!*
