- Mar 14, 2014
- 2
- 0
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Hello everybody,
My girlfriend currently teaches at a primary school that has a program whereby her class get to keep fertilised eggs so the kids can experience chicks hatching/feeding/growing. Due to none of the other teachers wanting to look after the chicks for the weekend we agreed to do so.
Out of the ten new born chicks (2 days old at present), 2 of them have had problems standing. We rang the supplier's helpline and were advised that they had splayed legs and to fashion a sort of band to keep their legs a little closer together. We did so for both. One of the chicks seems to be responding to this. However, after about 20 mins my girlfriend went to check on the chicks and noticed that something was not at all right with one of them. On closer inspection she saw that one of the chick's hocks was very swollen and that the skin had split, appearing to expose the chick's tendon! We were very worried and rang the helpline again. We were advised to attach a splint to the damaged leg to correct the shape of the hock.
This made sense to us because the tendon seemed to be covered with skin when the chick's leg was fully stretched out and keeping it straight would probably help the skin heal properly.
We managed to make a splint for the chick out of a plastic straw but I was wanting to hear what you guys think? Should we be putting the chick's leg in a splint? If so have we made the splint correctly?
-Sorry we only have photos of the chick with the splint on as I only decided to go on this forum once we made it. We were careful not to attach the splint too tightly but are slightly worried that the foot seems purple and swollen. My girlfriend is regularly helping the chick to drink water and has segregated him from the other chicks.
The chick sleeps with his leg stretched out behind him like this...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as this is all very new to us and we don't want to be causing the poor little thing unnecessary pain.
My girlfriend currently teaches at a primary school that has a program whereby her class get to keep fertilised eggs so the kids can experience chicks hatching/feeding/growing. Due to none of the other teachers wanting to look after the chicks for the weekend we agreed to do so.
Out of the ten new born chicks (2 days old at present), 2 of them have had problems standing. We rang the supplier's helpline and were advised that they had splayed legs and to fashion a sort of band to keep their legs a little closer together. We did so for both. One of the chicks seems to be responding to this. However, after about 20 mins my girlfriend went to check on the chicks and noticed that something was not at all right with one of them. On closer inspection she saw that one of the chick's hocks was very swollen and that the skin had split, appearing to expose the chick's tendon! We were very worried and rang the helpline again. We were advised to attach a splint to the damaged leg to correct the shape of the hock.
This made sense to us because the tendon seemed to be covered with skin when the chick's leg was fully stretched out and keeping it straight would probably help the skin heal properly.
We managed to make a splint for the chick out of a plastic straw but I was wanting to hear what you guys think? Should we be putting the chick's leg in a splint? If so have we made the splint correctly?
-Sorry we only have photos of the chick with the splint on as I only decided to go on this forum once we made it. We were careful not to attach the splint too tightly but are slightly worried that the foot seems purple and swollen. My girlfriend is regularly helping the chick to drink water and has segregated him from the other chicks.
The chick sleeps with his leg stretched out behind him like this...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as this is all very new to us and we don't want to be causing the poor little thing unnecessary pain.
