Laying Guinea, injured

[Sunny Acres VA]

Hi,
New to the forum, but have gotten tons of guidance via other people's posts. I have a guinea hen who started limping (no blood, no bone protrusion, no physical signs of injury other than one lame leg). The next day she started laying! This is our first go with Guineas and she is VERY young - just under 15 weeks. I don't know if she is limping because of something related to laying. She has laid an egg a day for three days. We had her confined to the coop in a dog kennel but she was very stressed being away from the flock. Today she was allowed to leave the kennel and coop and went for it big time. She found a spot that is safe from predators in our garden. My question - leave her here if she goes broody? Bring her food/water? She seems to be moving around ok, got up into a garden bed a few feet off the ground. I want her to heal and do what she needs to do for laying. Our flock is trained to go into the coop every night without any issue. Do we leave her out? Do we bring her back into the coop and close her back in the kennel? My priority is getting her leg healed over hatching keets. I just don't know where the line is for stress prolonging injury.

 

[Sydney65]

Hi,
New to the forum, but have gotten tons of guidance via other people's posts. I have a guinea hen who started limping (no blood, no bone protrusion, no physical signs of injury other than one lame leg). The next day she started laying! This is our first go with Guineas and she is VERY young - just under 15 weeks. I don't know if she is limping because of something related to laying. She has laid an egg a day for three days. We had her confined to the coop in a dog kennel but she was very stressed being away from the flock. Today she was allowed to leave the kennel and coop and went for it big time. She found a spot that is safe from predators in our garden. My question - leave her here if she goes broody? Bring her food/water? She seems to be moving around ok, got up into a garden bed a few feet off the ground. I want her to heal and do what she needs to do for laying. Our flock is trained to go into the coop every night without any issue. Do we leave her out? Do we bring her back into the coop and close her back in the kennel? My priority is getting her leg healed over hatching keets. I just don't know where the line is for stress prolonging injury.

Were they hurting her or attacking her? If not, let her be in the coop, but I'd keep her in the coop as long as she's playing house & laying eggs. If she's limping, she either has bumble foot or some injury to her leg, even if it's just a strain-which means she'd have even less of a chance of escaping predators. Birds on nests, even just playing at it, are sitting ducks, as are birds out at night.

 

[Sunny Acres VA]

No hostility from the other guineas. Anytime I approached her today, they actually moved towards her protectively which was odd. I did get a look at her foot and it doesn’t seem to be infected (although I’m a still very much a novice with my flock). She’s starting to gently put weight on it. I will keep her in coop - makes it easier to keep an eye on her. Do you think it’s ok to let the other guineas out and leave her in there alone?

 

[Sydney65]

No hostility from the other guineas. Anytime I approached her today, they actually moved towards her protectively which was odd. I did get a look at her foot and it doesn’t seem to be infected (although I’m a still very much a novice with my flock). She’s starting to gently put weight on it. I will keep her in coop - makes it easier to keep an eye on her. Do you think it’s ok to let the other guineas out and leave her in there alone

Atleast some or one will stay near the run or opt to stay in with her, if you let it/them back in. If you can get ahold of her with a towel you could give her a warm foot soak w/epsom salt. If it's a strain it'll sooth it and if it's a bumble it'll help clean it so you can see better. Bumbles can be between toes, on top, on bottom. Look for a dark spot or swollen area. If you google "bumblefoot" and then click images, it shows a pretty good variety of diff cases to get an idea of what you're looking at.

 

[Sunny Acres VA]

Ok, thank you for the info! I really appreciate the guidance.