Mystery leg injury on our favorite chicken :(

[xiggystardust]

Hi all, I can’t understand how to help our little Fluffy, who is a silkie about age 1.5yr. This morning as we left for a weekend trip I noticed she was limping severely. She has been broody so I’ve only seen her out of the box maybe once in the last week and am not sure when it happened, probably in the last day if my memory of when I last saw her out serves me right.

She’s a very docile bird and so I got to do a thorough check of her, and there is no clear injury; no cuts, swelling, bleeding, or obvious leg misalignment, and when I flipped her over to test light pressure (light squeezing) on her toes and joints she didn’t react with a clear flinch at any point.

I’m a bit at a loss on what’s wrong, and how to help. My only clue is that she looks like she’s trying to walk with her toes curled under. That seems like a clue but I’m not sure what it implies.

She’s clumsy, so I assume she got injured coming down the egg box ramp or from jumping the distance out the higher coop side door; it’s maybe an 18” drop where she likes to jump. This is my exact coop:
Sentinel Coop

My questions for you:
- what can I do to help her heal? What could this be??
- I’d like to convince her to sit on her eggs down on the ground rather than the raised coop box, but despite me moving the eggs to another location, she continued insisting on taking up her higher nesting spot.

Thanks all. Photo included for sympathy. Fluffy is the black one .

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Maybe she's sitting too long at a time. I'd make sure she's getting off the nest daily to poop, eat/drink and take a dust bath.
Do keep on top of checking her for lice and mites.
It wouldn't hurt to give her poultry vitamins that contain B2(Riboflavin).

Are you sure she's broody? Sometimes when a hen is unwell from something else, they can camp out in a nesting box.

As for moving her nest, a broody seems to have a spot all picked out, I let them decide unless it's in a place that is not safe from predators. When a hen takes her chicks off the nest, if the youngsters are not able to navigate the ramp back to the nest at night, then she will brood them in a quiet corner somewhere, so having a secure run would be important.

 

[xiggystardust]

Thanks. She’s definitely behaving broodily! She does still get up for the usual half hour to do her business (poop, eat, drink), but limps through it. I’ll check out the vitamin B! She does seem better yesterday, so hopefully it’s just a silly sitting position she’s been in or a minor injury that’s healing up.

 

[xiggystardust]

Quick update… She seems to have abandoned her eggs, her leg is getting a bit better but she seems to be losing all her feathers too . Hope it is just the fall molt and a twisted ankle… time will tell!