Official BYC Poll: Special Needs Poultry

[mrskenmore]

You are awesome and made my day in so many ways. I understand how your life could be easier (I think these things as well), but the quality and purpose of your life is better with her in it. Here is my Penny. She is one of three handicap chickens in my family, Her splay legs and curly toe paralysis was not corrected when she was young, and by the time I rescued her it was too late. She cannot walk, even though she has the will to live and get around like nothing I have ever seen. I am holding her as I type this message to you. I have to feed her and give her water, and have learned to do many things with one arm/hand.

I love your Penny!!! I love that she is an extra special Penny too. I do a lot of things one handed lol and am always thinking about Penny first.

Thank you so so much for your kind words and for sharing your story. My life is much better with my Penny and your Penny in it.


They touch our lives in many ways

 

[SleepyDinos]

I’m sorry if I’m a little late on this, but I have one speckled Cochin bantam hen named Daisy with a deformed beak of some sort. I’m not sure if it’s scissor beak or something else, but overall it’s pretty mild. I’ve got to clip her beak every month or so once it gets too long.

I’ve also got a Polish pullet named Scraggly with severely crooked toes that appeared around 10 weeks or so? I’ve tried to treat it, but not much has helped. She walks a bit funny, but so far I haven’t seen anything to think she is in pain. Very goofy and sweet, although a bit small for her age now. I don’t think she’ll ever lay, but my FFA chapter adores her. All the older hens seem to think of her as a little sister and it’s pretty funny to see her confidently strut (she tries) around the coop. These are some older pictures of her, and her toes have gotten more crooked.

 

[Jhura]

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.
View attachment 3610262
Baby Sunny on the left with her corrected leg.View attachment 3610263
View attachment 3610264

Can you tell me how your baby made out with the slipped tendon? Because I have the exact same situation right now with a four month old. I gauze and bandage her legs too, keep her in a padded protective environment, feed her regularly, take her outside, and give her enrichment,but she’s really struggling, she has a lot of frustration because she can’t walk. I just carry her around but I’m so so busy, it’s really hard! Thanks so much for your input!