HELP Chick with broken leg!

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Tkoop741

Tkoop741

In the Brooder
7 Years
Dec 25, 2012
29
0
24
Tyler, Texas
So we just let the chicks out in the run today for the first time. We checked on them a while later and one of the chicks has a broken leg. I don't know if he fell from the coop or if he got caught in the chicken wire. It was bleeding some but has stopped. He is walking around fine and eating but his leg is bent at an odd angle
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It's breaking my heart. I don't know if I should do anything. He is a 5ish week old RIR. I am a new chicken mommy so this is all new to me. Help please!
 
Options, You can take it to a vet. You can try to doctor it yourself with a splint and selfsticking bandage wrap. You can leave it alone and let it heal, it wont heal properly but the bird will heal. Or you can put the bird down. Depending on your situation and what you keep birds for those are the options. I have taken chickens to he vet with positive results as well as negative results, with a broken leg I would try to doctor it myself because of the fact that whatever they do at a vet you will need to repeat as the bandages will likely need to be reapplied almost daily with regular activity. The best advise I have is to splint it and then put this bird in its own cage to minimize movements and further injury, keep a close eye on the leg and keep the splint intact as best you can but the less movement in the break the better the success of healing, after a week or so you should see if it is healing properly or not and then go from there. Either continue what is working or take another approach. It is very difficult to heal a broken leg on a chick simply because they will continue to try to use it and not let it heal properly. But on the brighter side if you do your part the bird can live with a crooked leg he will just be slower than the others.
 
He was going to live at a new home today so I may let the new owner decide what she wants to do with him. Can't have roosters in the city so if she doesn't want him I may have to put him down. Since I'm so new to this I still feel like they are my babies..
 
unfortunately meat birds break their legs all the time, just because they are bread to be so stocky with the same legs as a normal chicken.
it is hard to deal with but also a fact of life. Some of my chicks that were injured are now my prizes just because they became so loveable from handling them so much.
 
We had a chick who, at more or less the same age (5 weeks) got her leg crushed at the joint when the tried to go through the gate as my DH closed it. He bandaged it well and left it like that, hoping for the best. We left the bandage on for about 4 weeks and she didn't try to walk on it, she couldn't really! This pic was taken about 2-3 months after the incident. She's the brown-black pullet closest to the camera. If you look carefully you'll see one leg is a bit shorter than the other one... Can you spot which leg it is?

My point is that they can recover completely from bad fractures if given the chance. Splint that leg, give her a tiny little bit of baby aspirin for the pain and give her time. Good luck!

 

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