Hello all!
My little "Australian Black" (a Silkie x ???) hen from a tractor store last April, Jet, is still having difficulty. When I brought her home, she had rickets, and while she healed up from it, she has re-injured herself about 4-5 times. When I kept her caged up as per common advice on the internet to get her to heal up her leg, we discovered that she refused to eat or drink. At the end of a day and a half of this, we let her out, to which she gladly rejoined life with our other five hens, and resumed her normal activity, but still she's been chronically limping around. She stopped using the perch and jumping up/down 2 feet's distance from the nest box shelf to the coop floor, and sleeps underneath the shelf in the third nesting area near food and water. Her appetite has always been perfectly fine. She's a healthy girl.
During the last few months, shortly after this, a vet from UNH recommended we give her crushed Tums to boost her calcium in case her legs needed further help. We did this, and her eggs went from jellybean shaped (very long and narrow) to wide and round like normal eggs. So the calcium seems to have helped her laying (besides the usual intake of oyster shell which the other hens may have gotten more of than she had during that period of time), but not necessarily her leg. The same vet recommended dissolved baby aspirin. We did that, and she drank it down, then acted like SuperHen, jumping up and down everywhere because the pain had stopped. We later found out that aspirin is supposedly bad for her, so we stopped that as well. For a while it looked like she was just limping around as per usual, but without pain, and we thought she was doing fine. The last day or so and today, she's been in noticeable pain. She's a trooper, but during times of distress she gives me a certain expression that I understand to be "I'm in pain", and she holds her leg tighter to her body and sits more on her other side to avoid it. Today she did that again. It's her right hock that's perpetually swollen and hurting.
What can we do to help her? She's my baby and I'll do what it takes for her. Would liquid poultry vitamins help? More baby aspirin?? Wrapping padding under her right foot to absorb shock while she walks around? (She kept shedding that when we tried it last year.) Jet is a strict indoor hen and does not have bumblefoot or any parasites/other bodily issue. It's just that **** swollen hock. She is usualy very active except times like this when her hock pains her. She still has a great attitude and a wonderful zest for daily life, so I'd rather not put her down unless it gets worse.
Thank you! I really appreciate your help.
My little "Australian Black" (a Silkie x ???) hen from a tractor store last April, Jet, is still having difficulty. When I brought her home, she had rickets, and while she healed up from it, she has re-injured herself about 4-5 times. When I kept her caged up as per common advice on the internet to get her to heal up her leg, we discovered that she refused to eat or drink. At the end of a day and a half of this, we let her out, to which she gladly rejoined life with our other five hens, and resumed her normal activity, but still she's been chronically limping around. She stopped using the perch and jumping up/down 2 feet's distance from the nest box shelf to the coop floor, and sleeps underneath the shelf in the third nesting area near food and water. Her appetite has always been perfectly fine. She's a healthy girl.
During the last few months, shortly after this, a vet from UNH recommended we give her crushed Tums to boost her calcium in case her legs needed further help. We did this, and her eggs went from jellybean shaped (very long and narrow) to wide and round like normal eggs. So the calcium seems to have helped her laying (besides the usual intake of oyster shell which the other hens may have gotten more of than she had during that period of time), but not necessarily her leg. The same vet recommended dissolved baby aspirin. We did that, and she drank it down, then acted like SuperHen, jumping up and down everywhere because the pain had stopped. We later found out that aspirin is supposedly bad for her, so we stopped that as well. For a while it looked like she was just limping around as per usual, but without pain, and we thought she was doing fine. The last day or so and today, she's been in noticeable pain. She's a trooper, but during times of distress she gives me a certain expression that I understand to be "I'm in pain", and she holds her leg tighter to her body and sits more on her other side to avoid it. Today she did that again. It's her right hock that's perpetually swollen and hurting.
What can we do to help her? She's my baby and I'll do what it takes for her. Would liquid poultry vitamins help? More baby aspirin?? Wrapping padding under her right foot to absorb shock while she walks around? (She kept shedding that when we tried it last year.) Jet is a strict indoor hen and does not have bumblefoot or any parasites/other bodily issue. It's just that **** swollen hock. She is usualy very active except times like this when her hock pains her. She still has a great attitude and a wonderful zest for daily life, so I'd rather not put her down unless it gets worse.
Thank you! I really appreciate your help.
