limping chicken

[dlhunicorn]

just keep eye on her...the symptoms described are of more advanced stage and do not always occur (tho one leg out in front and one in back is typical stance for one type of mareks)... keep monitoring her...if it is mareks she will either recover or not. If a sprain then her movement will need to be restricted to allow it to heal. Monitor her fluid intake as you want to prevent dehydration.

 

[6chickens]

she's not drinking alot but i'm ensuring that i give her suringes?sp full of water and she isnt eating alot unles she is on my lap????

how long will it take to recover if it is meraks? and after 3 1/2 weeks should she be showing some signs of recovery if it was a sprain?

how do i know if she's in pain? i really dont want to be selfish and prolong her pain longer than needed but dont want to euthanise if she can recover?

I'm stuck - she is showing no improvement

 

[mxmarg]

So to add to 6Chickens experience (I wish we knew what eventually happened):

My chickie is about 9 months old. About 4 weeks ago she came up limping. My knowledgeable chickie friends saw the video and said it looked like a bum hip.

I put her in a dog crate within the chicken run to recoup without the others sticking it to her.

Fast forward 3 weeks (5 days ago) and my husband discovered she was now just sitting in one spot. So I took her to a vet who did oodles of scans/xrays. Her hip is not dislocated or fractured. Perhaps nerve damage. Her bum leg was sticking out back and the other sticking straight out front.

I brought her inside with plenty of hay in the dog crate. Like another indicated, my chickie spreads the hay around with all her flapping and flopping so winds up sitting on the floor.

Like 6Chickens experience, my Shandy is eating like a champ. She seems to be her usual perky self. She talks when I talk to her. She lets me pet her and seems to enjoy it. She seems maaaaaaybe uncomfortable, but not in pain... Just yesterday I started noticing that sometimes I hear her inhale or exhale with a wheeze to it. ?

Sounds like from what others have said that there's a chance it's merricks disease. I have another chicken owner friend who once had a chicken doing something very similar. Friend let the chicken skooch around on her belly, getting herself food and whatnot. And then she turned up dead soon after.
Have to bet 6chickens chickie turned up dead too if she didn't some back with reports of her chickie improving.

We were going to put Shandy down last night... but she was so perky it was rather impossible to bring ourselves to do it. But from all the other stories Ive read in my research on this... all but one in maybe 8 stories I've found had the chickie not recovering. *sigh* no fun. To prolong or not to prolong... what is more humane?

 

[mxmarg]

Well, with the wheezing added to everything else, I didn't want to see and have Shandy experience the next phases of a downward spiral. So we decided to help her into the next world as gently as possible.

 

[littlebluechick]

I have an older hen with the same issue. I crushed up some advil and fed two tablets in two days to keep any sewlling down. Since she is the same now and its been ten days, I fear that she may have a tumor or something. What happened to your chicken? I see this post occured in 2007.

 

[Frankies Mom]

I am having the same problem! Help! What was the outcome?

 

[chicknmania]

there are so many causes of lameness and neuro issues in chickens, that every case is really different. It seems that if they have an injury, it takes a long long time, in most cases, to heal completely. We just released our limping cockerel, after he'd been confined for three weeks. He was very lame at first, due to his injury, but was making a slow recovery with the help of baby aspirin three times a day, and B complex 1/4 tab once a day. And we had him in a cage so he couldn't move around much. he is still limping, but we decided finally to let him out anyway, and since we have, he's so happy to be free, he seems to be doing better all the time. His limp is only slight though. We've had other birds with injuries and some still limp, but they have figured out how to deal with it. Obviously, though, you can't do this if your bird is very lame or has neuro issues.

You need to fully describe the symptoms in every lame bird, so that we can determine what the cause might be, and the best way to maybe fix it. Neuro issues are not a death sentence either, we helped one of our pullets, who had a serious neuro issue, make a full recovery with the use of Hypericum.

Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no cure. Vitamin therapy and baby aspirin are good starters.

Soaking in warm epsom salts soak helps too. A couple times a day.

 

[chicknmania]

I have an older hen with the same issue. I crushed up some advil and fed two tablets in two days to keep any sewlling down. Since she is the same now and its been ten days, I fear that she may have a tumor or something. What happened to your chicken? I see this post occured in 2007.

If she is just limping...it could just be arthritis.

 

[Frankies Mom]

First of all, I don't know whether 4 of my 12 birds are hens or roosters. They are now 10 weeks old, all muts, and I keep going back and forth. Yesterday, one chicken, who doesn't have much of a social role in the group, got up limping. His left leg seemed to be "asleep" looked like he had "pins-n-needles". I picked him/her up and examined her physically with no signs of swelling, sores, or injury of any kind. He/she ate and drank normally (maybe a little more aggressively than normal from my hand), and as the day went on, I noticed improvement. I researched about an hour and saw that "wait and watch" was the best thing to do. I checked the coop for poop anomalies and found 1 bloody stool. It was only one and it's not alarming according to a "poop chart" I used.
This particular chicken doesn't really "like" to be held, so when I tried to pick her/him up again later for a check and she/he ran away twice, I believed it to be a fluke and that maybe her leg was just "asleep"
This afternoon, I went out to let them "free range" for the afternoon (they only can range supervised), and the runt, who is by FAR the most aggressive and even fights, came out limping. His left leg was completely useless. It would barely keep him balanced and looked limp and lifeless (the leg).
I feel like I have made a huge mistake taking on these sweet babies without knowing anything about the care for them. I feel like a horrible Mommy and I just want to cry. I spend so much time reading these threads and researching and I still feel like I know nothing.
This particular baby is the meanest one of the bunch. He/she absolutely HATES to be held. I spent quite a bit of time with him a couple of weeks ago to tame his aggressive mean streak and he didn't like any of it one bit. He either calmed down, or realized he better only be ugly when no humans are around (not often). Now that I have him being sweet to the flock, this happens. Normally, he would do anything he could to get away from me. Now, he is sitting on my lap by choice and singing to me when he wants to be hand fed and syringe watered...lol.
I know wait and watch is the prognosis, but OMG, I am really afraid right now.
I will post some pics shortly!
Thanks in advance for any help and sorry for the long winded request!

 

[Frankies Mom]

The ill foot is starting to show some signs of what might be bumble foot. I am researching now what to do. He seems to be getting worse.