Kicking Chicken

[Grecia]

Horse Girl Abby, I just got a little good news. I was able to find the owner of the chicken in the video online, and she wrote back to me: "Hi there. That’s me! Unfortunately I can’t shed any light as to the cause. I did trim her spurs as some suggested, and it made no difference. She is now elderly (outlived her 2 sisters- a surprise to me) and she still kicks when she walks. If you ever get any answers, please come back and update me!"

So maybe it's just a nervous tic or something? Fingers crossed!

 

[HorseGirlAbby]

Horse Girl Abby, I just got a little good news. I was able to find the owner of the chicken in the video online, and she wrote back to me: "Hi there. That’s me! Unfortunately I can’t shed any light as to the cause. I did trim her spurs as some suggested, and it made no difference. She is now elderly (outlived her 2 sisters- a surprise to me) and she still kicks when she walks. If you ever get any answers, please come back and update me!"

So maybe it's just a nervous tic or something? Fingers crossed!

How interesting! So I guess it doesn’t kill the chicken, just makes them walk funny. It’s so odd that it only happens to some and not others though. And it’s pretty sudden too. My hen has always been sort of clumsy and has big feet, she walks like she doesn’t know what to do with them. I hatched chicks with her, and she was a great mom, she just kept tripping over them. The kicking thing isn’t normal though. Unfortunately we’ll probably never know what causes it. It probably has something to do with nerves or a muscle twitching, like a tic. It seems like hens can live long healthy lives in spite of this, which is what really matters.

How is your girl’s eye doing? Still getting better?

 

[DurbanGirl]

Hi there! OP here. Just catching up on the posts…

My girl (in the original video) is also an welsummer. And she also has an eye that looks a little off, the lids look ever so slightly swollen and they are not open completely (she looks a little “sleepy” when viewed from one side). I treated her with an ophthalmic ointment (can’t remember which one, probably gentocin) and it didn’t improve the appearance. She does still walk and kick. I hear her at night getting settled in the hen house and she kicks the walls. It’s hard to tell if she’s in pain. We did do a course of Tramadol for pain for 3 weeks, but noticed no difference one way or another.

 

[Grecia]

Yes, it does seem to be getting better each day. I stopped at the farm store and they do carry the Terramycin, should I need it, only $22 for a small tube. Other stores in this area charge about $28. I think I'll put saline drops in her eye again today and soak her feet in warm Epsom water as often as I can, as that seems to be fun for her. And I'll keep rubbing on the Vaseline, it case it could be mites that need to be smothered. The farm store worker is a chicken expert and he says those nasty mites often pick out just one bird in a flock to be their host. But he'd never seen a backwards kicking chicken.