My Lilith is injured! Anything else I can do to help her???

[gritsar]

My brahma girls are 3 years, 8 months old. Yesterday morning when I let them out I noticed my favorite Lilith was not using her right leg. She holds it up with the toes curled. DH checked her leg and foot over real well last night, but found no break, no bumblefoot, nothing out of the ordinary except she won't use the leg.

Though we purposely kept the roosts in the brahma coop low to the floor (due to the brahma's large size), this is the second time Lilith has sprained? a leg. The other time was when she was a young pullet.

Last night we confined Lilith to a crate within the coop to force her to rest the leg. She was very unhappy about it; she cursed us in chickenease. This morning she was still unhappy, so I sat her outside in a sunny spot near my baby coop. Within five minutes one of the other brahma hens started picking on her, so I brought the crate out and put Lilith in it. She's safe from predators and the other birds this way.

Is there anything else I should be doing for her? She's my favorite of the brahmas and it seems bad things always happen to the favorites.

 

[dawg53]

Keep her in the crate for R&R. Get some vitamin B complex tablets at a pharmacy and crush a few into powder and sprinkle it on her feed to eat. Do this for 5 days then let her out of the crate and see if she walks normal. If not, put her back in the crate and treat again with the vitamin B complex for 1 week, then and let her out again. If there isnt any improvement, stop the treatment. Vitamin B complex might help speed up recovery with these types of injuries depending on the severity. I've had decent success with it in my BR's and one Black Star...not so good with roosters. Sometimes it takes a week to heal, a month, or never. The toes curled has me kinda concerned that it could be a nerve issue unless she's able to spread them out on her own. If it's nerve damage, it would be a guess whether or not it would heal. Only time will tell. Good luck!

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Thanks so much Dawg. She is able to uncurl the toes, but doesn't want to. I'll pick up some vitamin B tomorrow.