My hen is about 8 months old now and I think I was treating her from 3-6 months old. She was normal for the first two weeks we had her and then one day I went to check on them and she was splayed out with one leg in front and the other behind. The next few weeks were filled with researching and trying to find what was wrong with her. Everything that I visited simply said to put the chicken down because it wouldn't get any better, but that wasn't an option for me.
Before I even thought of spliting her legs I began hand feeding her every morning and night and as many times in between as I could. She was so bad that she couldn't get to the food or water dishes at all. I bought some vitamin B capsules from the drug store-if the problem was a nervous issue vitamin B was supposed to help promote healthy nerve function. I got some electrolyte and antibiotic mixes from
Tractor Supply Co. I mixed her feed with water and added a small pinch of the electrolyte dust and vitamins and a drop of liquid from the vitamin B capsule once a day. It wasn't very scientific but it worked and she gobbled it up!
I think I got the idea of splinting when she was around 2 1/2 or 3 months old. Up until this point she got stronger and stronger but still couldn't control her legs. I started by using medical tape and a q-tip. I would tape gauze above her knee joint (so the tape wouldn't stick and pull out her feathers), then I would tape each end of the q-tip above her knee. This way her legs would stay underneath her but she could still bend them.
She didn't walk perfectly right away. At first she began scooting on her knees which was better than nothing. Each night I would take the hobble off and excersize her legs. She would be upright and I would hold each foot and do kind of a slow bicycle pedaling motion both foreward and backwards. I would also make her balance on each leg by slightly tipping her from side to side. Sometimes she would just sit limply on my hands while I did it but it familiarized her with the motion of walking and balancing.
After a while one of her legs worked perfectly but she held the other out straight, kindof like a peg leg. This is when I began splinting. I used pipe cleaners and medical tape to keep her toes straight and bent upwards instead of pointed (I looped one end of the pipe cleaner around her middle toe and the other around her ankle to keep it bent upwards and wrapped the medical tape around the other toes to keep them straight) . This way she could stand on her foot if she got it in the correct position. It took her another month to get the hang of it but she eventually was able to walk on her own. She still overcorrects with one foot, giving her kindof a funny "supermodel" walk- she crosses one foot in front of the other.
I had never heard of splinting/hobbling being done on a chicken as old as she was when I first started and that could be why it took her so long to be able to walk, but I'm really not sure. As long as there's nothing physically preventing your hen from keeping her legs underneath her or bending them I think it'll work no matter how old she is. It might jsut take her a little longer to get the hang of it. I would try it! The q-tip might be too small for her since she's bigger now, but you could rig something else up as long as its soft on either end so it doesn't hurt her.
She'll also need a lot of love. She'll lose the enthusiasm to fight and get better if she doesn't have a companion so you might have to beg your husband to let you take her indoors. I had to do that to my boyfriend and he hated it lol! She got used to air conditioning and watching tv with me and now she tries to sneak back into the house whenever I go outside to feed everyone, but I think it was worth it
