Lame foot hen

[ChickenMaman]

Good morning. Two days ago I discovered that my hen sugar was limping. She has swelling on her upper leg joint. She is also not been laying properly. She’s 5 1/2 years old.

In advice from this thread I gave her a warm Epsom salt bath for 30 minutes. I thoroughly dried her off and dusted her with diatomaceous earth because even though I can’t see any signs of lice or nits on her feather base or feathers, she does have a bald spot over her chest. Then I crated her inside the coop with the flock. The flock aren’t showing any aggression towards her, but it gives her easy access to food and water which she is unable to reach at the moment. She’s been kenneled for two days and her leg is still lame and limp.

How long should I expect to keep her crated before she heals or before I know that healing isn’t a possibility. If her leg does not heal, I don’t see how she can be kept with the flock. I don’t think that they will attack her, but she has no reliable way of reaching food with her lame leg from our feeders. It’s hard for her to get water, and she is unable to perch with the others on her purchase with just one leg. She’s not the best flyer and so far hasn’t been able to compensate for the lame leg by flying from place to place.

In summery:

-How long will she take to improve?
-How long until I can get an idea whether she’s going to improve or not?
-is there any way to keep her with the flock on a lame leg. Can she continue to be with them if eating and roosting are a challenge for her?

 

[Tookie]

I'm so sorry about your hen. How is she doing now?
So can she not use her leg at all? Does she move it ever? Can she grip your fingers with her toes? If you mess with it does it bother her?
Leg issues can take a long time to heal, and in some cases they are left with a permanent limp. I have a hen, who last year I found her limping and not using her leg. I separated her for 6-8 weeks, she had much improvement from how her leg first was but eventually improvement just stopped and she's now left with a permanent limp. It doesn't bother her at all and she gets around great.

 

[ChickenMaman]

She cannot use it at this point - it’s just hovering by her side. She tries to hop around in the crate to move around but becomes unbalanced and has to far one wing out. She is unable to use it for gripping, so she can’t perch at the moment (not that there’s anything to perch on in her crate). Her one leg is good and strong, but this one that’s hurt, she will not grip my fingers with. She really wants to free range. It I’m concerned about her ability to get food and come in with the other birds. I use Dine A Chook feeders which are slightly elevated to keep out mice and pests, but with her hurt leg she has a hard time reaching those. In her crate she has a food trough, but that set up can’t be replicated in the coop outside the crate.

 

[Tookie]

She cannot use it at this point - it’s just hovering by her side. She tries to hop around in the crate to move around but becomes unbalanced and has to far one wing out. She is unable to use it for gripping, so she can’t perch at the moment (not that there’s anything to perch on in her crate). Her one leg is good and strong, but this one that’s hurt, she will not grip my fingers with. She really wants to free range. It I’m concerned about her ability to get food and come in with the other birds. I use Dine A Chook feeders which are slightly elevated to keep out mice and pests, but with her hurt leg she has a hard time reaching those. In her crate she has a food trough, but that set up can’t be replicated in the coop outside the crate.

Poor girl! I wonder if she broke it or something? It doesn't sound good. Keep her separated so she can rest her leg.
I'm not too knowledgeable with this kind of thing so I'll tag some other members... @azygous @Eggcessive @Wyorp Rock

 

[azygous]

This is a reason why fixing up a safe enclosure within your run is so useful. It protects the injured or sick chicken for a few weeks while they heal. They don't have to compete for food and water while having their own protected space. As seen below, the flock can still interact with a chicken inside the safe space. In this application, my safe enclosure is being utilized as a chick brooder. That's the beauty of having such a space - you can use it for lots of applications from a recovering injured chickens to giving time out to a bully to using it to give a bullying victim time to rediscover her self confidence to integrating baby chicks or a recently acquired adult chicken.

It does appear your hen is suffering a sprain. It requires several weeks for a sprain to heal. An enclosure such as you see below can restrict the movement of such a patient so healing can happen while minimizing the chance of re-injury. The patient would sleep in the coop with the others, in a crate if they are unable to roost. This arrangement protects the rank of the patient to eliminate the need for re-integrating once the chicken heals.

 

[ChickenMaman]

This is a reason why fixing up a safe enclosure within your run is so useful. It protects the injured or sick chicken for a few weeks while they heal. They don't have to compete for food and water while having their own protected space. As seen below, the flock can still interact with a chicken inside the safe space. In this application, my safe enclosure is being utilized as a chick brooder. That's the beauty of having such a space - you can use it for lots of applications from a recovering injured chickens to giving time out to a bully to using it to give a bullying victim time to rediscover her self confidence to integrating baby chicks or a recently acquired adult chicken.

It does appear your hen is suffering a sprain. It requires several weeks for a sprain to heal. An enclosure such as you see below can restrict the movement of such a patient so healing can happen while minimizing the chance of re-injury. The patient would sleep in the coop with the others, in a crate if they are unable to roost. This arrangement protects the rank of the patient to eliminate the need for re-integrating once the chicken heals.View attachment 3773626

Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability at the moment to create the safe space in my run. Yours looks amazing. I would like to create a space like this in the future… I might do it as an addition to the coop.

In the short term I can keep the crate, which is a 3‘ x 2‘ dog kennel that’s about 3 feet high, inside the coop, with a steady supply of water and food for her. It will not give her much of a chance to roam around, but she will be close by the flock. I will plan to keep her in there for around eight weeks and see if she heals properly.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I know you posted photos of her in your other thread, but the leg swelling is not very clear.

Can you get some photos of the swelling and of her?


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/5-year-old-hen-limping-no-obvious-break.1614504/