One legged chicken

[viktoriacl]

Lorije1,What do you know? lol.

 

[The Lady]

Hi, I had an EE that's leg was mangled by a possum. She is quite a fighter and brave little critter. She was already laying when this happened. I took her into the barn,splinted the leg. Both bones were broken in her lower leg (drum bone) but fortunately the skin wasn't broken. I isolated her for two or three days then returned her to her flock with her leg splinted and bound to her body to hold it in position.. Before long she began hobbling along with the others as usual on one leg. Then she improved and can use her crippled leg to balance herself some, so she gets along fine (she is a real fighter with a great big heart - I really admire her spunk). I also have a cross-beak that I noticed as a chick just a few days old. My husband said right away that I should cull her but I just didn't have the heart to do it. I've watched her and she does eat the starter crumbles and is growing but not as fast as the others in her flock. I supplement her start er crumbles with chunks of soft bread, broken into pieces about the size of a nickle. She's learned to gobble them down pretty quickly and even uses her body to block the others from getting it away from her. Recently my husband bought 10 EEs that were day old chicks, one apparently got it's leg caught in the hardware cloth coop and broke the leg just above the elbow. When I found it, the skin was gone from the elbow up to where the break was. Again, my husband strongly suggested I cull her too but she was so cute and such a fighter that I hated not to give her a fighting chance so I cleaned, bandaged and splinted the leg as I had done the older chicken (Minnie). I guess the damage to the skin and tissue underneath was too much and it began to turn black from the break all the way down to & including the foot. By this time I had invested a lot of time, attention and love to her so I hated to think about euthanizing/culling her so I amputated the dead leg from where the break was, Fortunately (I guess) it is healing nicely. My problem is that I feel very guilty for what I have done and feel that I have doomed her to a life of hobbling around, struggling to keep up for the rest of her life. Did I do the right thing? I tried putting another chick from her flock in with her but it began immediately to peck at her leg/stump. I think a good solution at some point would be to put her with "/crossy" (the cross-beak) since "Crossy" wouldn't be able to peck at the stump. What do you think? would that be a good solution? Have I gone beyond the bounds of being helpful? They don't seem to be suffering. Even the small chick endures the dressing changes well, she hardly squirms and they are all three very attached to me and look forward to my time spent with them, as do I. Regards, the lady

 

[The Lady]

As to your question about your "one legger" foraging - she will find bugs, grass, etc. Of course, she won't be able to scratch, which they do enjoy doing, but she will benefit from being out. She will have trouble keeping up with the rest of the flock but she'll catch up with some every now and then. I just have to worry about Minnie getting too far away and a predator grabbing her. We do have some fox and coyotes around here occasionally. Regards, The Lady