mama attacked day old chick. help w/ injury.

[rehsanipoor]

We attempted to introduce 1 day old chicks to our broody hen, and it went very badly. She attacked two of the chicks. Thankfully we were there to quickly rescue them. Unfortunately she injured one. She was bleeding from the neck, which we treated with neosporin and the wound looks much better after two days. She is isolated (unhappily) We've been syringe feeding her egg yolk, sugar, water and nutri-drench. She does drink on her own and pecks a little at food but much less than her hatchmates.

The lingering problem is that her balance is not good. She walks very awkwardly and appears to "stumble around". When she tips her head back from drinking she often loses balance.

I do not see any obvious signs of injury to her leg, but I'm suspecting the problem is from the leg/hip. I think she is putting less weight on her left side (not totally sure). I am including a video and can take more pics/vids. if it helps someone identify what may be going on.

Thanks for your help.

 

[rehsanipoor]

Anyone out there who could take a look?

 

[rehsanipoor]

I haven't gotten any help yet, is there anyone who could help me figure out how to help our chick? I've looked at lots of articles and pictures but I'm not seeing what looks like what she has.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

We attempted to introduce 1 day old chicks to our broody hen, and it went very badly. She attacked two of the chicks. Thankfully we were there to quickly rescue them. Unfortunately she injured one. She was bleeding from the neck, which we treated with neosporin and the wound looks much better after two days. She is isolated (unhappily) We've been syringe feeding her egg yolk, sugar, water and nutri-drench. She does drink on her own and pecks a little at food but much less than her hatchmates.

The lingering problem is that her balance is not good. She walks very awkwardly and appears to "stumble around". When she tips her head back from drinking she often loses balance.

I do not see any obvious signs of injury to her leg, but I'm suspecting the problem is from the leg/hip. I think she is putting less weight on her left side (not totally sure). I am including a video and can take more pics/vids. if it helps someone identify what may be going on.

Thanks for your help.

Your video is private, can you please make it public? Thanks!

Photos of the wounds may be helpful too.

Without seeing photos or video, it sounds like she may have suffered some neurological trauma from the attack.

PND is good to give, so give her 2-3 drops twice a day to see if that makes a difference.
Encourage her to eat chick starter, try offering it as a wet mash.

 

[rehsanipoor]

Thanks for your help. I changed the video to "public". Sorry about that. I can take more videos/pics if it will help, just let me know.

There is no visible wound, she is just "wobbly" when she walks and I'm pretty sure she is having more difficulty with her left leg.

Her behavior seems normal otherwise.

Thanks for your help!

 

[NewcoopNewpoop]

Just a thought but it may also be a spinal cord injury.
I hope she recovers.

 

[Eggcessive]

Poor thing. Hopefully, making sure that she is getting food, water and the Poultry NutriDrench or Poultry Cell 2-3 drops, she will be fine. She might have a little head injury or sprained her leg. They are rather fragile at that age. Did you remove the chicks from the broody? I have slipped feed store chicks under a hen who only had one hatch, but did it one at a time, and in dim or dark press. Then you always have to monitor closely for pecking. Let us know how the chick gets along.

 

[Muser]

So I had something similar very recently. Basically, my Broody hen is in a protected coop with her new hatchlings. Another hen came near the bars and in the curfuffle, a baby was, to put it lightly, pancaked.

It wouldn't put weight on it's leg at all, it kept raising the leg up and it was shaking, it would then keep falling over and wasn't eating or drinking.

I took it away from the others to give it some respite so it could relax without being trampled on or pecked at by the other chicks (a wiggling leg is tempting to peck at apparantly) and I had a time frame of helping it have downtime vs Mother hen not accepting this chick back after some time.
I checked it over, no sign of external injury, I could pull the leg up and see its toes curl in response so I didn't think there were any broken toes/legs/hips.

I kept it away for a couple of hours under a brood plate to keep warm, gave it food and water and generally babysat it. When it was later in the evening, I put the chick gently back under Mum and checked on it again in the morning. Still the same, took it back out and looked after it, day by day it got better. It's running around as normal now, with the others, so I assume it was just a sprain. Took about 3 to 4 days to get back to standing normal.

Hope it's the same for you!

 

[rehsanipoor]

Thanks for all the help. I just wanted to be sure that more experienced people wouldn't spot an injury that we should be treating or just immobilize the leg. She does seem to be improving but not 100% steady on that foot. She is eating and loves mash. I will keep up the nutridrench. I'll continue to keep her separate as she gets easily knocked over and I am hoping more rest will solve the problem.

Can I give her the nutridrench directly so that I can be sure she is getting the full dose?

I took away all the chicks from the broody. It was her first time (and ours), and I didn't trust her to sneak them under and leave them with her overnight. Maybe if we had she would have taken them, but I certainly don't trust her now. We knew this was a possibility so have the supplies we need to brood them in the house. Just thought it would be neat to see a mama taking care of chicks. Now we'll just have friendlier chickens.