One of our almost 6 months-old hens started limping, using only 1 leg

[brewmonkey]

One of our hens started "limping" 2 days ago. She can only hobble on one leg. There are no signs of broken bones. Nothing seems swollen. She sits on the floor and has laid her eggs pretty much wherever she is. She just sits on the floor most of the time. But she eats and drinks fine. She is the lowest one in the pecking order, her eggs are the smallest and feel kind of "chalky" and are of lighter color. Is this a nutrition issue? We do feed the girls organic laying feed. But when we give them treats (lots of greens, fruits, veggies, scrambled egg) she usually is last to get anything. When all the hens get the good bugs, she is last to get any as well.
Did she just jump of the roost wrong and sprained something?

Should we separate her and put her in her own area for a while to heal? Feed extra nutritious treats?

We hate seeing her like this

Any help and pointers are much appreciated. We love our chickens they give us so much joy.

 

[brewmonkey]

So we ended up taking the girl poor chick to the vet after all. We read up all kinds of info from Bumble foot to egg binding to Mareks disease and it turns out she was EGG BOUND !

I had read up on different sites about egg-binding and read the suggested remedies. One of them said to have the vet administer calcium gluconate and I did suggest that to the vet after we saw on the x-ray that was indeed an egg she hadn't been able to pass.

The vet even though he wasn't super experienced with chickens did a really thorough job and we did talk about remedies I had read about. I though calcium gluconate was a good suggestion but before he was able to administer it he came out with an EGG in his hand and said the chicken laid it all herself.

Our girl is still down and exhausted. Looking a little better but NOT walking. The vet took a blood test and told us that her Calcium count was down 13.9, he said it should be 20 to 27 (but he wasn't 100%)

We bought a bag of Oyster Shell and are giving that to all the girls and the rooster. Will have to read up what other Calcium rich natural treats I can give them.

Maybe my choice of organic Laying feed wasn't so great? Maybe not all the girls get equal amounts of bugs from the yard, fruits and veggies. I also give them scrambled eggs.

Not sure if this helps anyone on here, but it sure would have helped me to know WHAT this was. We would have probably helped her here.

But in the end we did learn a thing or two about our chickens, nutrition, egg-binding and we got to see cool x-rays.

Oh and we got the most expensive egg ever as evidence. No, it is not for sale

 

[brewmonkey]

Update:

It took our girl at least 3 weeks until she got better. I am not 100% sure what was really wrong with her but we did change their diets and added extra calcium rich foods (treats) to it. All the chickens are getting the treats.
We did give her Hypericum Perforatum (St. Johns Worth) as recommended by some people on this forum and and after about 7-10 days our girl stood up on her own and within 2 weeks she took a few steps. We had her separated from the others and she spent a good 3 weeks by herself. When she was getting better we slowly introduced her to the rest of the gang. They were mean at first but with patience everything worked out. Our girl is moving around with all the others now. Her feet aren't 100 % back to normal but you can't really tell.

 

[seminolewind]

Wow. I would guess that the impacted egg may have been pinching a nerve.
I love organic, but it may not have supplied all the calcium a hen needs. Good you got the oyster shell.
Glad your hen is better.