How about a Thread for Embdens?

[Miss Lydia]

Question... when do I start to feed the newborn goslings?

You can put feed and water out any time they may not get interested till 24 hrs after hatch but your breech one might benefit from some water room temp or a little warmer with some vitamins in it. Do you have any save a chick or poultry nutri drench?
adorable lil one, make sure both can hold their heads up real good when leaving water. You will probably have to gently stick their bills in your their mommie now.

I'd def try and get the weaker one to drink and eat at least drink.

 

[chrisngo73]

You can put feed and water out any time they may not get interested till 24 hrs after hatch but your breech one might benefit from some water room temp or a little warmer with some vitamins in it. Do you have any save a chick or poultry nutri drench?

I dont have them but I m going out to the get the chick crumbs so I'll get some of that too. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I dont have them but I m going out to the get the chick crumbs so I'll get some of that too. Thanks for letting me know.

Keep us updated and be sure to get some Nutritional yeast or plain niacin to add to their food or water since chick starter doesn't have the amount of B3 water fowl need for strong legs and Neurological health

 

[chrisngo73]

Keep us updated and be sure to get some Nutritional yeast or plain niacin to add to their food or water since chick starter doesn't have the amount of B3 water fowl need for strong legs and Neurological health

Cant get any plain Niacin unless they are in B-Complex. Got some brewer's yeast though and have added it to a shallow dish of water for them. The breech birth gosling seems to have difficulty standing up and often rest with the legs splayed out at it's side (left gosling).

 

[Miss Lydia]

Cant get any plain Niacin unless they are in B-Complex. Got some brewer's yeast though and have added it to a shallow dish of water for them. The breech birth gosling seems to have difficulty standing up and often rest with the legs splayed out at it's side (left gosling).

Yo8u need to fix this asap before it can't be fixed. Here is alot of reading but it will explain various was to hobble. This is for all poultry. B Complex would be fine but since you have brewers yeast and they will drink it use it. This is food grade brewers yeast right? Looks like you got a boy and a girl


Leg Hobbles to treat Splayed Leg

​

** Splayed Leg needs to be treated ASAP and consistently!

CAUTIONS for treatment: A young chick wearing Leg Hobbles can't get up easily or stand easily. It can fall & drown if it stumbles near a water container. See "Prevent Drowning in Water Dish" section.
KEEP IN MIND: You need to help a chick daily by gently scratching itchy spots that the Leg Hobbles prevent it from reaching with its feet. If you don't scratch places for the chick like the back of its neck where it cannot scratch itself, it will be pretty miserable and can develop a terribly itchy, swollen welt from lack of normal skin stimulation.

Splayed Leg (also called "Splay Leg", "Spraddle Leg", and "Straddle Leg") occurs when a newborn chick younger than a week old is having trouble learning to stand and walking. While experimenting, the chick starts rotating one or both legs outwards at an incorrect angle. The chick rotates the leg so that foot points mostly to the side instead of forwards, and the chick often becomes sort of "knock-kneed" because the hock on the rotated leg almost touches the other hock. This leg problem may look like a birth defect or deformity, but often it is not to begin with.
Photos of a chick with one form of Splayed Leg
The rotated foot slips a lot when the chick tries to use it that way, so the chick will shift most of its weight onto the other straighter leg & mostly use that to support itself while standing, hopping along, or pushing itself along the ground. The chick may also push a wing out against the ground to help balance itself.
The chick usually shows problems in only one leg at first (the most rotated leg), but the straighter leg will also become deformed over time.

• VERY, VERY IMPORTANT: Check your bird to see if it also is suffering from Perosis (which can relate to nutritional deficiencies) and a Slipped Achilles Tendon.

Spraddle Leg is usually started by slippery flooring such as newspaper, but can be caused by hatching problems, high incubation temperatures, a painful leg or foot injury, a Slipped Achilles Tendon, or too many baby chicks being crowded in the brooder while learning to walk.
In a large number of cases, Spraddle Leg develops because of incorrect mental processing, rather than physical abnormalities. Even chicks that are born perfectly normal physically can develop Splay Leg in a non-optimal situation.

• THE BRAIN MUST LEARN ONLY CORRECT MOVEMENTS. You MUST prevent the chick from getting much experience at moving wrong or it will cement that movement in its brain and you won't be able to fix it.
  • When a chick is first figuring out how to move & walk, if normal movement efforts are unsuccessful or painful, the chick will experiment with alternate ways of moving. If it finds movements that are temporarily less painful or more effective, the chick will program its brain to move in the alternate ways, which quickly become habits which then cause muscles, ligaments and bones to become deformed by the unnatural positioning & pressures.

Leg Hobbles (also called "Hobble Braces") help keep a young chick from trying to incorrectly twist a hip and leg out sideways, by keeping a chicks' legs from spreading too far apart. These leg braces are made of material wrapped comfortably around each leg & connecting across the gap between the legs.

• Hobbles should be put on lower legs (below hocks) and allow enough room for the chick to stand with its legs just a little farther apart than normal standing position so chick can balance and practice walking.
• Hobbles can be made from a variety of materials:
  • White cloth-type sports tape is probably the most ideal, but you can use Band-Aids, Scotch tape, masking tape that has strong stickiness, etc. Be sure to see Special Note on Removing Tape from Legs.
    • For sensitive or feathered legs, put a little piece of paper towel (to cover the tape's stickiness) on just the section of the tape that wraps around the chick's legs. Yarn might be another good material to try--It helps minimize catching on fluff. Watch out for hobbles slipping too much
  • You can also use tiny plastic zip ties, leaving them a little bit loose for growth. You can tie the zip ties together with string & adjust length over time. This method may particularly be helpful for feather-legged birds.
  • You can make adjustable hobbles from Velcro. Make sure only soft side of material touches legs.
  • If you use a small elastic or hair-band in figure-8 around legs with tape wrapped around section between legs, there is greater chance of the hobbles slipping up on the legs, plus the band might stretch too much to be helpful enough.
• Make sure wraps around the legs are secure enough that they won't come untaped on their own nor slip up above the hock joint. Make sure that circulation isn't restricted, which you can sometimes detect if feet start looking reddish.
• Be sure to check & change Hobbles as needed at least every 2 days since a chick is growing fast and tape will quickly become too tight to allow growth & circulation.

Once the chick has Hobbles on, it will usually experiment with turning its legs forwards (like it should) instead of twisting one leg or both legs out to the side. The little chick will gradually wobble less and not use its wing for support as much, and will try stepping ahead. Once the chick learns that correct walking is the most effective motion and the chick reprograms its brain, you can begin leaving the Hobbles off.

• Leg Hobbles have the best chance of being effective if put on within 1 to 3 days of hatch, and usually correct Splayed Leg within 4 to 6 days of treatment in a newly hatched chick. If the chick is 4 days old or older when you start treatment, the chances for reprogramming the chick's brain are slim and the problem likely can't be cured.
• Do not leave hobbles off AT ANY TIME before the problem is cured (unless you want to sometimes take hobbles off while doing Physical Therapy).
• Continue to keep the Hobbles on most of the time for a minimum of 1/2 day after chick seems to be walking pretty correctly. Watch closely for a few days after & put Hobbles back on if chick needs help again.
• If you want to really help ensure continued recovery when chick seems better, instead of completely removing hobbles, at first just cut across the middle connecting section so legs can move freely for 2-5 hours. Then tape the middle section back together for 1-4 hours. Then completely remove hobbles (See Special Note on Removing Tape from Legs) if chick walks correctly, or repeat this process another time or two if needed.
• If you remove Hobbles too soon, the chick may revert to previous problem within a couple days. The older a chick is and the more time a chick spends using its legs wrong, the more difficult it is to fix this problem.

​

• If the chick wriggles out of Hobbles, use a single vertical wrap of sports tape (or masking tape or sticky section of band-aids) around the section between the two legs to more firmly tape the center section together.
• If chick keeps standing with its hocks too close together, you can experiment on added solutions. This may be especially needed for chicks 4 days old or older.
  • Physical Therapy can be a very helpful added treatment.
  • A technique that's proven some success: Add a second hobble on upper legs above hocks.
    • See "For feathered legs" below to deal with fluff on thighs.
  • A technique you may test out: Reinforce center section of brace to add extra stiffness to help keep legs apart. Use extra sports tape wrapped vertically, pipe cleaners, thin piece of taped-on cardboard, etc.
  • • You need to be extra careful on tightness for these. Keep watch that it isn't so loose that it slips where it isn't supposed to be (such as slipping over hocks) nor so tight that it cuts into muscle.
  • You SHOULD NOT try to correct long-time twisted legs or severely twisted feet in ADULT BIRDS. (Although, kinks in toes can sometimes be gradually corrected if the foot hasn't become too twisted.) Adults' bones have finished developing & hardened--it would be unsuccessful & very painful to try making any significant changes. Changes would also throw off balance, and adults are extremely likely to persist in trying to walk in habitual distorted way which will re-create and worsen the deformities.

Fix Slipped Achilles Tendon in Hock Joint

 

[chrisngo73]

Yo8u need to fix this asap before it can't be fixed. Here is alot of reading but it will explain various was to hobble. This is for all poultry. B Complex would be fine but since you have brewers yeast and they will drink it use it. This is food grade brewers yeast right? Looks like you got a boy and a girl


Leg Hobbles to treat Splayed Leg

​

** Splayed Leg needs to be treated ASAP and consistently!

CAUTIONS for treatment: A young chick wearing Leg Hobbles can't get up easily or stand easily. It can fall & drown if it stumbles near a water container. See "Prevent Drowning in Water Dish" section.
KEEP IN MIND: You need to help a chick daily by gently scratching itchy spots that the Leg Hobbles prevent it from reaching with its feet. If you don't scratch places for the chick like the back of its neck where it cannot scratch itself, it will be pretty miserable and can develop a terribly itchy, swollen welt from lack of normal skin stimulation.

Splayed Leg (also called "Splay Leg", "Spraddle Leg", and "Straddle Leg") occurs when a newborn chick younger than a week old is having trouble learning to stand and walking. While experimenting, the chick starts rotating one or both legs outwards at an incorrect angle. The chick rotates the leg so that foot points mostly to the side instead of forwards, and the chick often becomes sort of "knock-kneed" because the hock on the rotated leg almost touches the other hock. This leg problem may look like a birth defect or deformity, but often it is not to begin with.
Photos of a chick with one form of Splayed Leg
The rotated foot slips a lot when the chick tries to use it that way, so the chick will shift most of its weight onto the other straighter leg & mostly use that to support itself while standing, hopping along, or pushing itself along the ground. The chick may also push a wing out against the ground to help balance itself.
The chick usually shows problems in only one leg at first (the most rotated leg), but the straighter leg will also become deformed over time.

• VERY, VERY IMPORTANT: Check your bird to see if it also is suffering from Perosis (which can relate to nutritional deficiencies) and a Slipped Achilles Tendon.

Spraddle Leg is usually started by slippery flooring such as newspaper, but can be caused by hatching problems, high incubation temperatures, a painful leg or foot injury, a Slipped Achilles Tendon, or too many baby chicks being crowded in the brooder while learning to walk.
In a large number of cases, Spraddle Leg develops because of incorrect mental processing, rather than physical abnormalities. Even chicks that are born perfectly normal physically can develop Splay Leg in a non-optimal situation.

• THE BRAIN MUST LEARN ONLY CORRECT MOVEMENTS. You MUST prevent the chick from getting much experience at moving wrong or it will cement that movement in its brain and you won't be able to fix it.
  • When a chick is first figuring out how to move & walk, if normal movement efforts are unsuccessful or painful, the chick will experiment with alternate ways of moving. If it finds movements that are temporarily less painful or more effective, the chick will program its brain to move in the alternate ways, which quickly become habits which then cause muscles, ligaments and bones to become deformed by the unnatural positioning & pressures.

Leg Hobbles (also called "Hobble Braces") help keep a young chick from trying to incorrectly twist a hip and leg out sideways, by keeping a chicks' legs from spreading too far apart. These leg braces are made of material wrapped comfortably around each leg & connecting across the gap between the legs.

• Hobbles should be put on lower legs (below hocks) and allow enough room for the chick to stand with its legs just a little farther apart than normal standing position so chick can balance and practice walking.
• Hobbles can be made from a variety of materials:
  • White cloth-type sports tape is probably the most ideal, but you can use Band-Aids, Scotch tape, masking tape that has strong stickiness, etc. Be sure to see Special Note on Removing Tape from Legs.
    • For sensitive or feathered legs, put a little piece of paper towel (to cover the tape's stickiness) on just the section of the tape that wraps around the chick's legs. Yarn might be another good material to try--It helps minimize catching on fluff. Watch out for hobbles slipping too much
  • You can also use tiny plastic zip ties, leaving them a little bit loose for growth. You can tie the zip ties together with string & adjust length over time. This method may particularly be helpful for feather-legged birds.
  • You can make adjustable hobbles from Velcro. Make sure only soft side of material touches legs.
  • If you use a small elastic or hair-band in figure-8 around legs with tape wrapped around section between legs, there is greater chance of the hobbles slipping up on the legs, plus the band might stretch too much to be helpful enough.
• Make sure wraps around the legs are secure enough that they won't come untaped on their own nor slip up above the hock joint. Make sure that circulation isn't restricted, which you can sometimes detect if feet start looking reddish.
• Be sure to check & change Hobbles as needed at least every 2 days since a chick is growing fast and tape will quickly become too tight to allow growth & circulation.

Once the chick has Hobbles on, it will usually experiment with turning its legs forwards (like it should) instead of twisting one leg or both legs out to the side. The little chick will gradually wobble less and not use its wing for support as much, and will try stepping ahead. Once the chick learns that correct walking is the most effective motion and the chick reprograms its brain, you can begin leaving the Hobbles off.

• Leg Hobbles have the best chance of being effective if put on within 1 to 3 days of hatch, and usually correct Splayed Leg within 4 to 6 days of treatment in a newly hatched chick. If the chick is 4 days old or older when you start treatment, the chances for reprogramming the chick's brain are slim and the problem likely can't be cured.
• Do not leave hobbles off AT ANY TIME before the problem is cured (unless you want to sometimes take hobbles off while doing Physical Therapy).
• Continue to keep the Hobbles on most of the time for a minimum of 1/2 day after chick seems to be walking pretty correctly. Watch closely for a few days after & put Hobbles back on if chick needs help again.
• If you want to really help ensure continued recovery when chick seems better, instead of completely removing hobbles, at first just cut across the middle connecting section so legs can move freely for 2-5 hours. Then tape the middle section back together for 1-4 hours. Then completely remove hobbles (See Special Note on Removing Tape from Legs) if chick walks correctly, or repeat this process another time or two if needed.
• If you remove Hobbles too soon, the chick may revert to previous problem within a couple days. The older a chick is and the more time a chick spends using its legs wrong, the more difficult it is to fix this problem.

​

• If the chick wriggles out of Hobbles, use a single vertical wrap of sports tape (or masking tape or sticky section of band-aids) around the section between the two legs to more firmly tape the center section together.
• If chick keeps standing with its hocks too close together, you can experiment on added solutions. This may be especially needed for chicks 4 days old or older.
  • Physical Therapy can be a very helpful added treatment.
  • A technique that's proven some success: Add a second hobble on upper legs above hocks.
    • See "For feathered legs" below to deal with fluff on thighs.
  • A technique you may test out: Reinforce center section of brace to add extra stiffness to help keep legs apart. Use extra sports tape wrapped vertically, pipe cleaners, thin piece of taped-on cardboard, etc.
  • • You need to be extra careful on tightness for these. Keep watch that it isn't so loose that it slips where it isn't supposed to be (such as slipping over hocks) nor so tight that it cuts into muscle.
  • You SHOULD NOT try to correct long-time twisted legs or severely twisted feet in ADULT BIRDS. (Although, kinks in toes can sometimes be gradually corrected if the foot hasn't become too twisted.) Adults' bones have finished developing & hardened--it would be unsuccessful & very painful to try making any significant changes. Changes would also throw off balance, and adults are extremely likely to persist in trying to walk in habitual distorted way which will re-create and worsen the deformities.

Fix Slipped Achilles Tendon in Hock Joint
Thank you so much for the warning, I m so glad tobe part of this supportive group. Have tape them with plasters. Thank you again, I truly appreciate it.

 

[chrisngo73]

Good morning everyone! THANK YOU so much Ms Lydia for all your advises last night, goslings are standing! the band aid didnt last the night so I hold several hairbands in place with small cable ties around their feet. I think the non slip mat helped, turns out the towel wasnt rough enough of a surface. Have also moved them to a 1 sqm box so they can stretch their legs and get under the heat if whe they get cold. Have also taken them out on the grass they run straight albeit wobbly, will do more in between the rain. Thanks again, lots of valuable lesson learned. This is an awesome group.

 

[servpolice]

Good morning everyone! THANK YOU so much Ms Lydia for all your advises last night, goslings are standing! the band aid didnt last the night so I hold several hairbands in place with small cable ties around their feet. I think the non slip mat helped, turns out the towel wasnt rough enough of a surface. Have also moved them to a 1 sqm box so they can stretch their legs and get under the heat if whe they get cold. Have also taken them out on the grass they run straight albeit wobbly, will do more in between the rain. Thanks again, lots of valuable lesson learned. This is an awesome group.

That's brilliant news! Hate seeing goslings suffer like that. Imagine it growing up for the rest of it's life sitting on it's belly. Two goslings and looks like you've got a male and a female but you probably already know that Can't wait to see the little guys grow

 

[chrisngo73]

That's brilliant news! Hate seeing goslings suffer like that. Imagine it growing up for the rest of it's life sitting on it's belly.
Two goslings and looks like you've got a male and a female but you probably already know that

Can't wait to see the little guys grow

Yes! I tried the vent test to be sure. So the male did came from an oblong egg and the female did came from the oval egg.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Yes! I tried the vent test to be sure. So the male did came from an oblong egg and the female did came from the oval egg.

It's the grey coloring on Embdens. males are lighter grey, females darker. I am so happy to hear the news, great you realized the towel wasn't helping and out that looks like plastic hardware cloth I have some too. You are doing a great job with them I look forward to more pics and hearing about them too. Enjoy them they are precious.