Problem peachick!

[1lilmrnstr]

Please don't judge me! I am a very conscientious person and we do take very good care of all of our animals I promise! This post is to share info and to ask for you pros input please! I am pretty brand new to the world of peafowl but we have chickens, dicks, guinea fowl, pigeons, lovebirds and parakeets as well that we have had for decades.

Anyways, I have recently gotten 4 peachicks. 2 are about to be 15 weeks and are doing great. 2 are almost 5 weeks old. The 2 youngest developed spraddle leg but only 1 needed the leg braces. We took him to the vet on Wednesday and have a follow-up on this coming Wednesday. The 1 with leg braces suddenly seemed to have puffy cheeks the past day or two. I don't have the best eyesight and I broke my bifocals so I'm really not seeing very well!

Tonight, 1 of my daughters was helping me change the chicks leg braces and I was getting a good look at his beak. I had my other daughter come take a look because I was worried he had some sort of malformation starting. She examined him while I held him and she discovered a very long, very light blonde human hair had gotten wound around his lower break which was then cutting into his skin as he grew! She was able to remove it from the outside but it very clearly goes down his throat and could not be pulled out. Trying to remove something like a string or a hair from a cat or a parrot can do some damage so she just got as much as she could and snipped it off. I feel absolutely terrible about this. I can't believe this is something none of us saw until just now! I can't believe we didn't notice it before.

My question is will the poor thing pass this on his own or should I take him in to the emergency vet? I have no problem doing that. I would prefer not to since it is a 2 hour drive each way to an emergency exotic vet and it's 10pm but I absolutely will if this is an emergency. I do know that he is still eating and pooping all the time. His droppings are soft but they are normal size, smell and color otherwise. Activity level is about the same as his hatch mate is other than the walking with the leg braces on. Or should I give him something to help him pass the rest of the hair and if so what?

The picture is to show what I meant about his puffy cheeks. We have silky chickens and they just have fluffy feathers that makes it look like they have fat cheeks so this is why I didn't automatically notice something was wrong. It is red because of the heat light in their broody box.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[azygous]

Cute little guy. No, you haven't been neglectful. These little twerps seem to go out of their way sometimes to get themselves into trouble. Probably the puffy cheeks are from swollen tissue from the string being wrapped around the beak and should return to normal in a few days.

I think there's a good chance now that the rest of the string will travel down through the digestive system and get expelled in the poop. But you can assist by giving this little one some raw egg white to slime his digestive tract and protect his inner tissues as the string travels through.

 

[KsKingBee]

Hair is protein like feathers are protein, it will dissolve in the crop. The cheeks' puffiness is from the hair wrapped around the lower beak.

 

[1lilmrnstr]

Thank you so much for reassuring me about my poor little pea! His little puffy cheeks have indeed resolved and has had no problem with digestive issues! Weeew!

He has also now come out of his little leg braces and the spraddle leg and knock knees seems to have resolved!!

Initially he had vet wrap around his lower legs but his knees were still right up against each other which also allowed his left leg continue to turn out. A lot of emailing and talking to our vet and we came up with a solution that helped straighten his little legs out and I just wanted to share it in case someone else could use this. It was so simple really and so much easier than trying to do the vet wrap not to mention we didn't have to blow through all my vet wrap!

We used the same idea that I had seen used by so many others. A lot of people say to use a drinking straw and a small rubber band to space the ankles out. We used this idea with baby chickens in the past once or twice and it worked well.

With these little peas I didnt think a rubber band or hair tie would work for two reasons. The first was that they are so much bigger than a baby chicken. The rubberband or hair tie would possibly be small and thin enough to create a tourniquet effect especially considering how fast they grow! The second was because I was worried that a drinking straw would have a sharp and hard edge that could possibly cut into the legs skin.

Our solution was to use a silicone drinking straw to avoid any sharpness and a fat rubberband that the grocery store uses for vegetables like asparagus. We also used two splints, one between the ankles and knees and the second one just above the knees.

I cut the straw into two sections that were different widths to help get both the knees and ankles an appropriate distance apart. I used a crochet hook to pull the fat rubberband through the silicone straw. Then one of us held the pea with his legs sticking out so we could get the splints on and in the right position. Of course, we checked the splints several times a day to make sure they were not too tight and that they were still in the right locations. It took a full
two weeks to get him to where we think his spraddle leg has resolved. We are continuing to keep a close eye but so far so good!! The

Here is a picture for everyone who is a visual person like I am! The straw was just a "travel" straw which is why it has those segments. The rubberband as you can see is a very wide one. The crochet hook was stuck through the straw to catch the rubbberband and pull it through. It was such an easy solution! Baby pea was able to walk around, even though he was a little clumsy, but he definitely was walking better than before them! Now he is walking great. He does still turn his left foot out slightly but so much better. We started the splints on August 22 when he was 4 weeks and took them off September 4 when he was 6 weeks. The fit was never too tight or too loose and the top splint never slid down because the knees are big enough to prevent that and the bottom splint never came off his legs or slid down onto his feet or got pushed up too high either.

 

[azygous]

Genius! So good to hear the little guy is doing well.