Hen is weak, won't walk on her feet.

[Weaseldog2001]

Recently I had new chick that after 24 hours, started having difficulty walking. After limping for a day, it begin to waddle with it's feet up. Finally it couldn't move at all. After a few days of force feeding it, and trying to coax it back to health, I felt it was a lost cause and culled it this morning.

Now I have three year old hen that is waddling and weak. Like the chick, she is waddling around on the back of her legs and not on her feet.

At least her crop is full. She's still eating and drinking.

In case it's the heat getting to her, I've brought her inside. As far as I can tell she can't move her toes. She doesn't react when I pinch them.

Any idea what I'm against?

 

[chichichickapea]

I have had some suffering from heat, the worst one is 9 weeks old. She was really weak and could only walk short distances then could not walk at all. I put chick electrolytes in her water....put her in front of a fan, dipped her in a little water.

 

[atmafarms374]

Check her achilles tendon... it may have slipped out of the grove.... We had a baby chick that had this problem... I popped the tendon back in place and had to make her a little splint. She was walking on her hock before we fixed it. I don't know if you can slip the tendon back into place once they are older, you might want to look into it though. It is caused by a vitamin deficiancy, I can't remember which vitamin it is, but you can google it.

 

[FlyHigher]

Sounds like MD to me. MD can cause limp or paralysis. But not sure.

 

[Weaseldog2001]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

After a night in the house she made a full recovery. I've taken measures to make sure my hens have a cool place to go to during the day.