Limping Rhode Island Red Rooster

[Desert]

Hello Everyone! I'm new here so forgive me for jumping straight into things...

I have a Rhode Island Red Rooster that has been limping for several days on his right foot.
I've checked for Bumblefoot and any other possible punctures, scabs, infections, signs of damage, etc. and I can't find anything at all.

I'm guessing he might have landed too hard when jumping from the coop or something like that and now he's just dealing with a sore leg. It does seem to be a bit better today, although it's been a week since I first noticed it.

I've tried to check it throughout the day just in case I can see something that I haven't seen before but still there is nothing.

The weirdest thing is that I have a White Leghorn hen (that laid her first egg today) who has a tiny limp now (just started that yesterday) and I've posted about her current issues on this site. I wondered if there was something about that limp that I should worry about although I can't imagine what on Earth would cause a limp to spread through a flock.

Any ideas?

To sum up:

No Bumblefoot signs
No scabs
No punctures
No signs of damage to the skin
No signs of damage to any bones
Just a rather strong limp
It seems to be slightly better today
It has been going on for a little over a week


Thanks!

 

[Judy]

I've had them apparently sprain or strain something and limp for a month, then get over it. You could try confining him for a few days to rest the leg, although he won't like that. You could also try aspirin -- the dose is in a sticky on this forum but I'll copy it for you: Besides hopefully relieving discomfort, aspirin is an anti-inflammatory so can help things like sprains heal. If you happen to have baby aspirin at home, they will probably just eat it like a treat. Good luck!


Quote:

 

[Desert]

Thanks for the advice!
I'm thinking that he'll soon recover fully but that Aspirin tip will come in handy. I'll give him a baby Aspirin as a treat to see how he does.

If anything else comes from this I'll make sure to update this post for anyone that reads it in the future.

 

[Desert]

Update:

Well, the rooster isn't limping so much today but I've noticed some odd behavior now, at least I think it's odd behavior.
My wife and I are new to raising chickens and ours are just now laying their first eggs.

The rooster (RIR) didn't come out of the coop today, rather, he's just sitting inside. He isn't exhibiting any kind of peculiar behaviors or ailments but the fact that he hasn't come out and has been sort of tucking himself into a dark corner of the coop is concerning.

Yesterday was the first day our chickens had full run of a newly built pen and enclosure, giving them at least 250 square feet more room to run around in. The rooster sat most of the day in a few different spots, most likely due to his limping.

I also noticed that our White Leghorn hen was inside the coop with the rooster most of the morning. I figured she was laying on an egg but I haven't spotted one yet and she has only come out of the coop a couple of times. I assume she's broody. Is that correct? And is it possible that the rooster is staying in the roost for some reason related to the hen laying an egg?

I've never seen this behavior before and I hate to jump to the conclusion that the rooster is infected with some sort of nasty disease or fatal injury. It just seems like too far of a jump to make this early in the game. But since I'm new, I thought I'd ask around.

I'll check out the forum to see if I can find similar situations others have had.

Thanks for everything!

 

[PoultryPedia]

Marek's Disease can cause progressive paralysis, usually starting with one limb on one side of the body. It is contagious. Maybe read about it & see if it might be a possibility.

 

[Desert]

I've been researching Marek's Disease like crazy now but I think that the rooster might have something else going on, or at least I hope so.
It seems that Marek's tends to get the younger birds and this guy is over 6 months old now.

We decided to separate him from the rest of the flock and really try to doctor him the best we could. We didn't find anything at all wrong with him visually and couldn't feel anything that seemed odd either.

This is really a head-scratcher for me.

I'm still wondering if he might have landed really hard on a leg and is having a slow recovery of it.

On a sidenote I gave the coop an intense and thorough cleaning yesterday to make sure there wasn't anything going on that I might have missed and it looks good in there now.

Hopefully, with some more attention and care we can get him back on his feet.

 

[PoultryPedia]

I hope everything clears up quickly. That is good you are jumping right on addressing possible problems!

 

[Desert]

Thank you.
I think I'm going to splint his leg and see if keeping him off of it and away from the flock for a day or two might help it heal a little faster.
Fingers are crossed that it's a simply hurt leg from a hard landing and not something more serious.

But now I'm having to deal with my White Leghorn hen who seems to be wheezing a tiny bit. She's so heavy that I'm afraid I might have overfed her somehow.

I'll be looking around for info on that issue in another post so I don't end up changing this one too much, I think.

 

[PeepsAreForMe]

Hi Desert! I have a pretty big roo - Mr. Big (he's in my avatar). We went away for a long weekend in mid August and my friend who was taking care of the chicks told me he was limping. I am fortunate to have an agricultural vet (mobile too!) so I had him check him out. We thought it was Marek's disease and he drew blood from all three girls and him. Thank goodness it was not that. But I did give him shots every other day for a week. He would not put any weight on it. The vet did a little test by holding him up with is good leg tucked under, dragged him backwards, then forward and his foot flopped and the top was on the ground. He determined it was nerve damage and that it was possible he would not get any better. It broke my heart to see the girls scratching and running around and he couldn't. Sometimes he would sit in one spot for a while, I think it was quite an effort to hop on one leg all over the yard.

When it started getting darker earlier and I did not see them after work I could only really inspect them on the weekends, and one weekend in early November I noticed he was not limping! I thought about splinting his leg too but I think that would have been more stressful. My vet thinks he jumped off something and landed in a split. So it just took time to heal. You could do a blood test to check for diseases - it was very inexpensive - I think $40 for all 4. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[Desert]

Wow, that's really encouraging!
I'm going to search for the quickest and nearest way to get those tests done right now.

We actually just transferred him to a slightly larger enclosure for the night inside. He's acting like normal, doing his usual crowing, eating, drinking, etc.

The only real change we've noticed is that his waste came out a very dark brown just a few minutes ago, although since he's been isolated and indoors since yesterday evening, I'm assuming that might just be something he does every now and again, since I don't usually see which chicken does what as far as manure.

I think the thing that bugs me most is that the day he started showing a bit of a limp was the same day I had replaced the ramp to their coop with a much better, more comfortable one, with a lot less of an incline (the coop is off the ground by several feet).

I think if I would have done it a day or two earlier I might have avoided him landing hard.

We really do hope it's just related to a bad landing, and since he seems to be alright otherwise we're going to keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks so much for you reply!