Please help new member with meaties ...

[kathyinmo]

I know nothing about meat birds. There is a new BYC member, with her first post, on the Emergencies area. She wrote in someone else's thread. I do not know what to tell her. Can you help her please? Here is the thread. She is post # 12...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2938957#p2938957

 

[maplesky7]

I answered this there:

her question:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/41864_stiff_legs.jpgChicken 7 weeks stiff legs and funny droping wings, loss of balance.
I am new at raising meat chicken. I have 50 of them, all are vaccinated for Marek's disease (well supposedly). I am raising my second batch this year. Out of this last batch 3 chicken developed a funny gait at 6-7 weeks, with dropy wings. After a few days of isolation, heat, antibiotics, vitamins, no improvement in their condition. I have never seen these symptoms before. My sister has been raising chicken for many years. Should I destroy those birds?

my response:

I had a cornish x like this that we would carry out under the cherry tree and put food and water in front of it and help it through out the day and then put it away in the coop again at night. And when I brought all of them to the processors all of them were fine and none were (i forget the term they use off hand) but basically none were tossed in the dump, which they do if when they test it it comes back with some kind of illness.

 

[hildymarie]

Not that I am any sort of expert by any means but I would take them off antibiotics, (there should be a withdrawel period on the label) and baby them separate from the rest. If they survive the withdrawel period, process them. If you see this again and they are big enough, process them as soon as you see it and enjoy.
We had one that went lame. We isolated him so the others wouldnt run him over and kill him; these birds have no manners. He ate fine and needed help moving from one part of the pen to the other, eventually after a few weeks could stand if you stood him up, then later could get up and stagger at least. Howard as we ended up referring to him as, was the tastiest one we had. We remember him fondly.