Hurt leg has me confused.

[cupman]

My one and only Blue Andalusian chick has a hurt leg. I posted about it a week or so ago and this is kind of an update and a few questions on my part. She got hurt 8 days ago, I assume it happened just freaking out and jumping with other chicks, but I had introduced a new bird recently.. who knows really. she just had a limp when I went to see her. I examined her, there is nothing abnormal about the shape of her legs, they don't show any sign of being injured. However, she will not put any weight on that foot, and it's been like this for a week. She hasn't shown much signs of improvement at all, maybe a tiny bit, maybe my imagination. She is isolated. She can hop around her box okay, but she isn't drinking or eating much food... but obviously enough to keep her alive cause she always seems to have energy when I visit her. She freaks out when I see her so I try to limit how often I check her and be very slow so I don't startle her into re-injuring herself.

I'm just new to injuries. I don't know what to think. I didn't think the leg was broken and it certainly doesn't appear to be broken. How long do hurt legs normally take to heal? Anything I can do to reduce stress on the bird or her leg?

edit: the chick is a little over 6 weeks old

 

[Judy]

I just checked, 21 views and no replies. I'm afraid this is because it's pretty well impossible to answer, as there surely are several possible causes. I can think of injury, joint or bone infection, genetically malformed joint, torn tendon / ligament. I think the "how long" is generally around 4 weeks. You might just have to make a judgment call on quality of life and how much extra attention you can provide.

Let me give you one link that might possibly provide something helpful:

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

 

[seminolewind]

About how long ago did you get the new bird? Have you gotten any new birds before that?

 

[phy]

My Blue Andalusian was attacked by a hawk, and so she couldn't walk for about two weeks, and it took her probably about a month to fully recover. I would say just keep waiting.

Be careful about isolating her totally from the flock. If you do this, the flock will probably pick on her a lot when you reintroduce her. You might want to have her spend time with the flock for supervised, short period of time.