Official BYC Poll: Special Needs Poultry

[JRies]

This is Bucket when she was 2 month old she head dove in a bucket sometime during the night (got her wing cought on the handle of the bucket). Her wing was severely damaged and it tucks under. She spends her night in a kennel to make sure she gets food and water since during the day she is shun by the rest of the flock and tends to spend her time in a different area than the rest of the flock.

 

[Chickensss1]

I have a duck named scoots who lost the ability to walk as a young baby. We nursed her back to health but her legs are very short and it causes her issues with getting dirty and being more susceptible to infection and being able to walk. She stumbles a lot because her legs are slightly bowed. She has to lay down alot.It’s ok though her boyfreind helps her around. Always has since they were little. The chickens also love the ducks and love to cuddle with scoots.

 

[MaeM]

I had three.

1) Milka

I don't have pictures of her because I didn't have a phone/camera back then. I was about 11-12 years old.

Milka was born in the house. When Priscilla got broody, my mom wanted to take her eggs away. I remember that felt so violent for me at the time, lol, like "you're taking her babies away!". I insisted so much to let her have them - I even spent an afternoon (and planned to stay the whole night, lol!) next to Priscilla so that my mom wouldn't take her eggs, lol. That's when she said ok.

She had three babies, one of them was Milka. She lived a happy life alongside her family for a few years (can't remember how many), until she got paralyzed by Marek's disease. I remember taking her to the vet to rule out she didn't have a broken hip or something (there had been a storm and we thought that maybe something had fallen over her), but after some exams, we got the bad news.

I was told that she would never walk again and was offered to put her down. I was a child, and she was my pet, of course I said no. I took her back home and taught her to SLITHER! She had some mobility left so I encouraged her to use it so that she could move toward her feeder and waterer whenever she wanted to. For longer distances, I would simply carry her in my arms. For example, if the others were dustbathing, I would take her there and bathe her myself, lol.

I also designed a special swing (my dad built it) so that she could "stand up" and I would move her legs/feet as in some sort of physical therapy, lol.

My dad was building a wheelchair for her when she died overnight, about one month after her diagnosis.

Now I understand how questionable it is to keep a chicken alive in that condition, but I do not regret it. She wasn't in pain, and I was with her all day long, taking her to places and making sure she would eat and drink and spend time with her friends, etc. I like to think she didn't suffer that much.

2) Anton

Anton allegedly got Marek's disease, too (what a curse). He wasn't paralyzed, but one day he started walking like he was drunk, and fell over. I took her to a vet who said he had encephalitis, treated for that, and pretty much recovered, but.... he never walked like a normal chicken again.

He didn't fall over, but he had a weird walk. He couldn't roost, but he slept in a nest box. He couldn't jump to the coop's door (it is slightly apart from the floor), so I provided a ramp.

The problem was that Marek's left him immunocompromised, and he ended up getting wet pox. He died in my arms last year.

3) Bianca

Bianca survived pneumonia with pulmonary edema last year.

I took her to the vet in critical condition (they had to give her oxygen) and he even proposed to cull her. I committed to giving her a long treatment instead - one month of antibiotics every 12 hours, diuretics (to help her expel the fluids in her lungs) every 24 hours, and bronchodilators as needed.

She recovered from the infection and edema but ended up with tracheal stenosis and reduced lung capacity. Meaning, she breathes with noises and if she gets too nervous/excited or runs more than she should, she starts breathing with her beak open and making louder noises.

Sometimes, she needs to take bronchodilators because of that. But she mostly has a normal chicken life - with a few limitations, but she's learned to live with them. For example, she knows she can't run a lot so if the rest of the flock is running, she follows them at her own pace.

She also has reproductive issues. She has a tendency to lay soft-shelled eggs (if she lays at all - she mostly stopped laying after her illness). So, once in a while, she spends like 2 hours in the nest box or needs a warm butt bath. I must keep an eye on her in case of infections or prolapses (this happened once).

But I don't mind. She is my baby.

 

[triciayoung]

#1: Easter Egger, 21 weeks old, neck and spine issue, cannot hold head upward and one wing is drooped. She has a neck twitch. I have to help her roost and get down everyday.

#2: Adopted Barred Olive Egger, 23 weeks old, one leg out at 90-degrees that was not fixed when she was younger. The other leg has a few curled toes but she tries to walk on it, but not well. She has to be fed and given water 10-12 times a day. She is inside.

 

[triciayoung]

I have 4 currently. 1 pretty blind (we think she can still see light and shadows, but that's about it) and 3 with limb amputations (2 missing all or the majority of their toes amd 1 missing her lower leg)

You are a saint. That is a lot of work.

 

[casportpony]

Most interesting is there has been no mention of mental health as a disability or special needs. I've had a couple of those.

Now that you brought it up, I guess I've had a couple of those. One was a rooster that fought with all other roosters non-stop. In one of those fights, he lost an eye. Because of his continued fighting, he had to be in his own coop with a couple of hens.

In human society mental health problems account for a large proportion of special needs support. What happened here? Doesn't BYC accept chickens can have mental health problems? Disappointed frankly.

What gave you the impression that BYC doesn't accept that chickens can have mental health problems?

Was is this:

That was my attempt to catalog everyone's "special need", but I've realized it will be easier to do in a spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b4xYtRRF-h3beOZagfDlB4zaa058r20ehIW_FG93xEA/edit?usp=sharing

 

[StardustChicken]

Probably my oldest living case: Larry. He'll be turning 2 years old on September 4th. A few months ago a young Bantam Cochin roo pecked his eye, he's blind in that one, needless to say. He's had quite the misfortune: at 2 days old he got a cut at the base of his tail that caused wry tail and at 2 weeks old he got fowl pox that ended up causing damage to his "good" eye's eyelid.

He's one tough cookie though: at 1 year old a pitbull got into the chicken yard and he rushed it head-on and kept it busy long enough for me to run in there and get the dog. He walked away caked in mud with just a small puncture wound on his rump. He did enjoy the blow-dryer after his bath

He's afraid of the other roosters now but he has his own enclosure with his own silkie ladies that he loves to spoil. He even has a sweet daughter that recently turned 4 months

 

[triciayoung]

Interesting responses and pretty much what I expected.
Special Needs; it needs some definition. I would go for a permanent disability that prevents the bird from living a normal life for the duration of that life or requires supportive care on a permanent basis.
I've had a couple with disabilities but those disabilities didn't prevent them from running with their tribes.
Able, he had a limp caused by getting his foot caught n some wire when he was a chick. He had a limp until he died. However, he was completely independant and lived a normal life despite his limp.

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I would not consider many of the birds posted in this thread as special needs. Some may have a disability but otherwise recovered (then they were sick or injured birds) or their disability didn't prevent them from having a normal life.

I may well have had special needs chicks at various points but I found that with broody hatching in free rang/ranging conditions the mother would leave them at the nest. If mother didn't want such chicks then I wouldn't let them live. Many will disagree with this no doubt. It has meant that the chicks that leave the nest are physically healthy and can keep up with the others.

Most interesting is there has been no mention of mental health as a disability or special needs. I've had a couple of those. While they were physically capable their mental health did not allow them to fuction fully in chicken society and with one in particular, Cheepy, if she had been a human in modern society she would have been supported by a medical professional for her entire life.

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In human society mental health problems account for a large proportion of special needs support. What happened here? Doesn't BYC accept chickens can have mental health problems? Disappointed frankly.

However this thread does illustrate some of the problems of having a forum section for special needs chickens. Lots of disabilities but not that many that require supportive care for life.

I have counted 17 thus far that need assistance - which is how I would define a disability. When they need to be fed, water, up or down to roost, etc....

 

[fluffycrow]

I have counted 17 thus far that need assistance - which is how I would define a disability. When they need to be fed, water, up or down to roost, etc....

Just to make it plainly clear, you mean a chicken should have all of those to be considered disabled, or just one or two

 

[casportpony]

Used to have a duck that hatched with a severe bill deformity. He was able to eat from deep food dishes, so that's what we did for him.