Injured Rooster

[wa2qcj]

He is a Red Ranger, and I guess the other 3 roosters decided to gang up on him. He can't hold his head up. He can stand, and staggers around some. He seems intent on winning this effort. It appears that he can neither eat, nor drink. So, it is either put him out of all misery, oe help him recover. I have had him segregated for a couple of days now. The desire is to help him. So, how do I proceed? What would be a good liquid diet for him to rebuild his strength. There is the question that needs to be asked, am I being to "humane", and the rooster better off to be put out of it's misery. He is in a straw bedded coop, with plenty of room to , in his case, stagger in. I have a heat lamp on to try to keep him warm.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I always give them up to a week to show improvement. I have had a few a young dog got a hold up and messed up a bit. I let them rest. I didn't feed nor force water on them. They can go days without either. Messing with an injured bird is painful to them and stressful so I leave them alone. It's also easy to get stuff down the wrong pipe and they will choke.

Most will recover without any intervention. Those that don't improve after a week often won't and will go downhill. After a week I make the decision to leave them another week, cull, or release them.

You will need to address your roosters as you won't be able to return him to the same pen or coop. This time of year hormones are surging and roosters are starting to fight and posture for dominance.

 

[tedschickens]

Hi I have my first batch incubated chicks and I hate to hijack your post but I do have a question regarding that but I'll get back to that.I have received a few from hatchery that were hand-delivered not mailed and a few bought from a local person willing to sell me some chicks. In both batches I had one that was not thriving and I did the Poly-Vi-Sol without iron once a today and mixed egg yolks with it's medicated Chick feed and both made a full recovery. Both took a lot of my attention and had to be separated or kept with just one buddy to keep them company which I think they preferred as long as it wasn't picking on them. It was a very stressful time I was constantly checking on them and gave them water from a syringe at least every few hours except for at night they went for about six hours without water. One was so bad at one point I had an oxygen tank at home from my son was a preemie that I used on her because her breathing became very shallow but she's almost a year now and doing great.

I hate to hijack your post but I don't really know how to make a new post and one time I did I never got any responses so I am hoping to get some input here. I hope you don't mind I will delete it if not.
So I had six eggs in the incubator that hatched between 21-23 days. The chick that hatched on the 23rd day died several hours after hatching and had a very distended abdomen. The other five are doing great except for one that appeared to have splay leg on her right leg. After googling I applied a leg brace around "ankle" And the hock or knee joint really swellled up and i notice that the leg was not only out towards the back but twisted slighting towards the body and the foot would not touch the ground. So I taped it up with Band-Aids and I'm not sure but I think that's when I may have ripped off a little bit of skin even though I tried to be very gentle and now there is a wound. Does anyone know if it is safe to administer antibiotics And anti-inflammatories to chicks only a few days old? And if so can you please advise as to what types and with the dosage would be for a Bantom chick. Father was a micro serama and the mother was a small gray naked neck Silkie. So babies are very small and very cute. I have read nothing but horror stories about bringing chicks back from illness but this little girl was a fighter and I want to give her as much a chance as possible to make it.
OP I hope you could also find some of this information useful, again apologies for hijacking your thread. I hope your baby is ok.
Oh one more thing you can buy tiny syringes and feed him the egg yolk and feed that way. Almost like tube feeding but less invasive. I've also put their food in a magic bullet or baby food blender with a little warm water and made it like a watery paste so they can get it down from the syringe. If you can't find any syringes I believe you can order them on Amazon or just go to the pharmacy and ask for them,they don't have a needle on them so you don't need a prescription and they're used for infants so they always have them on hand. I just happen to have some from my son but they are very small and skinny and easier to get in a strong willed beak. Please keep me posted on your baby. Thanks again

 

[aart]

Almost like tube feeding but less invasive. I've also put their food in a magic bullet or baby food blender with a little warm water and made it like a watery paste so they can get it down from the syringe.

And also more dangerous......aspiration and suffocation are a very real danger in syringe feeding.

 

[bobbi-j]

If this were my chicken, I'd give it another couple of days and then reassess. In the past, I have tried to "save" chickens or other animals that I should never have tried to save. I only ended up prolonging the inevitable and making them suffer longer than they needed to. If he's not eating or drinking on his own in a couple of days and getting weaker, I'd probably put him down if he were mine. I wouldn't tube or syringe feed a chicken for fear of aspirations as mentioned above.

If he were to come through this, you need to think about housing him. I'm not sure I'd put him in with rest of the roosters since they've already almost killed him once. Could you put him in with your hens, or would he have to be isolated and live in a lonely existence by himself? Chickens are a flock animal and seem happier with chicken company.

 

[tedschickens]

Thank you for your replies