Official BYC Poll: Special Needs Poultry

[texsuze]

I've had a few hens who developed mobility issues. My thoughts are that they were likely caused by M. synoviae, since my flock had tested positive for both MG and MS. Most recently my Dominique hen, Vashti, went to the Rainbow Bridge in Feb. She would've been 9 this summer, but passed in her sleep after a steady decline in mobility. She had tenacity and would fuss at the other hens if they got too close. Lots of daily care, moving her around, lowering the coop and changing ramp angles, creating a special nest box for her, daily eye cleanings (she'd accumulate lots of 'goop'), feedings several times a day. I would not trade a single day of having been in service to her. I miss her.

Fay, my BA hen, my Big Brave Girl, passed two years ago with similar problems. When these special needs girls have their good days, they are positively inspirational! I try my very best not to let anyone get too far downhill. Thankfully I have a wonderful vet who has no issues with euthanizing anyone in need, since neither husband nor I have the intestinal fortitude to handle that ourselves.

Right now, I have a 1-yr old EE crossbeak, Blanche. What a pistol! A real walkie-talkie, as the EEs tend to be. Took her yesterday to my Wonder Vet for a beak trim. A well-spent $22---and I'll stick with that plan as long as she is doing well.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Did you do regular beak trims?

I got some of those right now.

Sorry I was headed back in from break at work earlier so I didn't go into details.
The bird's name was Crookie she was a buff orpington. Her Cross beak wasn't noticeable until she was about 10 weeks old. I was lucky in that I never had to actually trim it. She was a genetic hot mess! The first time she molted it was clear that the entire side of her body was pulled down and back compared to the other side. In summer she looked bikini ready, she stayed naked. In Winter she actually grew a decent amount of feathers. Even though she was challenged at eating time she managed well enough with wet mash everyday to maintain her body weight.

The birds I have had with crooked toes mostly got around with no issue. A few over the years developed arthritis and a limp associated with the toe. I did have to trim the toenails on them regularly.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I had a hen, named Gimpy. She was a RIR mix. When she was a chick, she suddenly ended up with a slipped tendon, that I wasn't able to correct fully. She was about 4yrs old when it started to become harder for her to get around. Her leg became abit more crooked, & then she developed gout, & bumblefoot. Both of which I treated successfully.
I eventually decided to go ahead, & cull her. Partly due to her having a reoccurrence of bumblefoot.

 

[Molpet]

I had a 16 wk pullet that a hawk attacked one October. I thought she was dead until she cheaped as I was carrying her.....blood coming out of eyes,ears and mouth. Back of neck scalped. Punchers in back.
She spent the winter in a parrot cage in my living room watching TV like a zombie. In spring she started watching the chickens outside and finally she acted like she wanted out. I would put her out and she would come back to the gate wanting back in at night. Eventually she went in the coop one night. She always was a brick shy of a load after the attack. She did start laying eggs and hatched a chick. She died a couple years later.

 

[HorseGirlAbby]

I’ve got two special needs girls as of right now.
Delaware, my Delaware (really creative name, right?) has a crooked neck. She’s been like this ever since she was a few months old, and it hasn’t really bothered her, now that she’s five. She acts like a normal hen, though she hasn’t laid any eggs recently. The other hens have started picking on her, which I think is because she can’t speak “chicken language” very well. She gets terrified if other hens look at her, and spends most of her time on the roost away from them. Also due to her neck, she can’t groom her whole self, just her chest and shoulders. So she grooms those so much she has no feathers left there, and the rest of her is disgustingly dirty. Whenever she molts, I have to groom her for hours so her feathers can come in. But she’s definitely my little girl
Del nice and clean after her bath:

My other little hen, Gidget, is the same age as Del, and almost completely blind. She finds food and water by bumping into them, and when I let them out in the evening, she yells at me at bedtime until I put her in the house. Her blindness came on quite suddenly a few months ago, and she previously was perfectly fine. She’s still laying eggs, and manages to get into a nesting box and onto the roost just fine. One of her favorite places to stand is on top of my foot, where she feels the safest
This is before her eyes got really bad, and she could still mostly see:

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

I have two.
This is Muffet. She has wry neck from a suspected injury (she was not born like this). She has had it so long I don't know of it is reversible (I can find very little info on cases like her own), but the only thing it seems to effect is her grooming. She needs help with pin feathers when she moulting, but is capable of living with the rest of the chickens, getting her share of food, ranging, and even navigating the high roost. She recently started laying too

I'll post about Sunny in a bit.

 

[NanaK]

Meet Dixie. She is a Cream Legbar and a really sassy girl. She turned 9 years old in Feb. She has mobility issues, seems to be her hips. It was and on again/off again type problem at first.

I come to believe over time her injury was caused by her long standing love affair with Elwood. He was a really big boy. His dad was a Orpington/Australope cross and his mom was a Black Copper Maran. He loved Dixie. They always roosted together. When she was broody he would go inside and sit with her. I watched this happen many times.

That's Dixie on the other side of the hardware cloth. She has a chick under her.
Elwood passed away last year at 7 years old. He was such a good boy. I miss him. He was handsome and a pleasure to have around.

Dixie has always been a lap chicken so she is easy to handle. Here she is about 6 weeks old sleeping in my grandson's lap.

When her problems first started she had a bit of a limp. I had noticed she was the only hen of 20 that had feathers missing from her back. A couple others had some wear on the back feathers but Dixie's was way worse. I separated her and started her on B-Complex 1/2 a capsule (broken open) folded up in a piece of bread. She took it easily. I did this for about a week. First couple days I also gave her Rooster Booster chicken vitamins in her water. She improved pretty quick. But Elwood was always wanting to give her love so sometime later it happened again. So we did the same treatment as before but she was left with a slight limp. Everything was fine for a while but then some of the younger hens started picking on her and she was having trouble climbing up the ramp to the roost.

To shorten this very long story, she now is the permanent resident of the broody box in the coop. She is beside the flock day and night. She has a separate entrance from a personal run outside separated from the flock by hardware cloth. I tried to put her sister with her but Dixie wasn't having any of that. I often catch some of my older girls sitting beside her fence hanging out. Sort of like human neighbors talking cross the fence. Before Elwood passed away he was often chatting with her through the fence. I always wonder what they were saying!

If it is extremely hot or very cold she comes inside to hang out with me. She has her own little apartment (a big bin) inside the house. She is inside right now! It was almost 100F with higher heat index today. Although my birds have lots of shade, she doesn't do well with heat and cold. When it's super cold, she acts like her hips bother her more. Her limp is more pronounced. I think she has developed arthritis as this has been going on for several years now.

As long as they are eating, doing some chickeny things and don't seem to be suffering, I do my best to help them. When I see suffering and looks like they won't improve, my husband helps me with that. If it come down to it, I think I could but he said he'd rather be the one.

I also have several 7-10 year old hens. They are all doing great right now most still lay a few eggs in spring. Dixie laid quite a few pretty blue eggs this spring herself so I think she is pretty healthy for an older gal.

My old gals have a special place in my heart!

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

This is Sunny, her story is a bit longer.
I normally wouldn't commit to such a high needs disabled chicken but Sunny is extremely important to me. She hatched about the same time a fox got most of my chickens, including multiple of my pets. I was on the verge of giving up chicken keeping.
Sunny hatched with a  single slipped tendon, which I corrected! I'll include some baby pictures to show that.
I can't remember how old she was but maybe she was 8 weeks old? She got sick, suspected Coccidiosis, when she had recovered I discovered both her tendons had slipped.
For a long while I had decided I was going to (get someone else to, I couldn't ) euthanize her. After some time I went back on that decision. Sunny is incredibly resilient and I want to give her a chance because she helped me a lot.
She can still move around by using her wings and shuffling around on her hocks. This absolutely results in pressure sores on her legs. Currently I manage this by bandaging her legs adding some gauze swabs to pad her joints. Wrapping also keep her legs clean. I am currently planning new housing for her and I would like to keep her on some kind of padded cage liner to soften the pressure on her joints. I will continue wrapping her legs for the hygiene side of things.
I don't have alot of recent pics of her, this is one from March. Also is a more flattering angle of her, her legs often stick out at awkward angles.

Baby Sunny on the left with her corrected leg.

 

[BDutch]

Benjamin

I voted Yes, because I had a chick that needed special care on his first day. It had difficulties to hatch, hatched later than the other chicks and wasn’t ready to go out with the flock. It needed the warmth of a broody and was peeping.

So I took him inside and made a kangaroo bag around my waist to keep him warm. In the evening I added him under one of the broodies together with his brothers and sisters. The next day he could get along with the others.

 

[HorseGirlAbby]

I have two.
This is Muffet. She has wry neck from a suspected injury (she was not born like this). She has had it so long I don't know of it is reversible (I can find very little info on cases like her own), but the only thing it seems to effect is her grooming. She needs help with pin feathers when she moulting, but is capable of living with the rest of the chickens, getting her share of food, ranging, and even navigating the high roost. She recently started laying too
View attachment 3610254View attachment 3610255
I'll post about Sunny in a bit.

Her neck looks just like my Delaware’s!