New born with spraddled legs

We had the shoes on for 3 days. He can't walk at all or get his legs under him. I put him on the floor to see if his legs got any better and to take the pix.
 
I recently solved a couple of spraddled leg problems with a bandaid cut in half and put a little coating of vaseline or Bacitracin on their legs so the tape is wrapped around and stuck to itself and not their legs. Much much easier to remove and lasted for 3 days (which is all they needed). Also, boosted the niacin level in their drinking water. For a larger duckling a bandaid may be too small.
 
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Not sure what hobbling is. We put his feet together in another shoe to try to bring them closer. And his legs are close together.
 
Not sure what hobbling is. We put his feet together in another shoe to try to bring them closer. And his legs are close together.
splay+leg+blog+pics+2-16-12+%2821%29.jpg
 
  • Location: SW Central Michigan
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Ok - here goes. Get a roll of VetWrap - this stuff looks like elastic bandages, but it sticks to itself. Any farm store will have it, I've only ever seen it in bright colors, it's used a lot on horses.

Cut a strip about 3/4 of an inch wide and 2 1/2 times the correct distance between the legs.

Now - what you want to do is make a loop around one of the upper legs with the vet wrap, and stick it to itself on the inside of the legs. Take the other end, do the same thing. Helps to have someone hold the bird.

If you look at it from the bottom, the edges of the vet wrap would form a figure 8 with a "neck" in the middle and the flat sides are against the legs. Won't hurt to get down in there, this stuff only sticks to itself.

You may have to adjust this after setting the bird down, it's ok, vet wrap always sticks to itself. Unstick it and adjust. Great stuff.

If the bird is REALLY bad, you may have to make another splint for the lower legs. If you do, the bird will not be able to walk hardly at all, so take out any waterers and only allow the bird to drink supervised. If you have to splint, that's a good idea anyway. Make sure it can get to food, it will be terribly clumsy. Usually in a day or so the bird can stand on it's own. Just take the vet wrap off and check, if need be, put it on again, if the bird's iffy put it on looser.

Tried lots of stuff before I used this stuff - this stuff is the greatest! Good l


taken from another thread here on BYC.
 

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