Raising Guinea Fowl 101

[harley587]

He is already hobbling on it. Gonna pull splint off and redo it tomorrow just to check to make sure there were no indentations in leg or loss of blood flow and check tendon. The hobble for splayed leg came off but his foot is flat on ground anyway. I just used it to draw leg forward. Doing good. Fingers crossed. Could go either way.

Let the old guys out into coop...meaning the cowards are still hanging in brooder. Not cool. Probably come out tomorrow morning and find them all out. Or not. One did come out but she is looking for the way back in.

Hi Charid! checking in on your little mobster. How's he doing? I've been so busy lately that I'm in forced hiding!!

 

[charid]

@harley587


The leg isnt drawn up into his body but when I removed splint it didnt look good. Refer to pic.

Trying to help may have made it worse. Going to a non bird vet for guidance may have made it worse. Trying to splint it may have made it worse. The rubberband and straw technique was the first time I noticed his decline and i am 100% certain destroyed a perfectly good leg. His tendon was just out. The bone was good. The skin. The tendon...until the rubberband technique.

It got caught up above the splint, tghtened down on the good leg and twisted the bad which I suspect is exactly how his knee was ruined. Now I dont see much in the way of recovery.

 

[charid]

 

[guineapeeps]

He looks like he has grown a lot and gotten stronger from your previous picture. From your picture, it looks like he is able to bear weight on his leg. If he is able to hobble around on it and eat and drink on his own, I would not give up. Guineas are pretty resilient birds and can learn to compensate if given time. In a previous post, I mentioned my Guinea hen who broke her foot. For the first 6 months or so after it happened, she really struggled and wouldn't really leave the coop. Now (almost 2 years later), although she walks really funny, she does a pretty good job of keeping up with all the others. Maybe with a bit more recovery time, he too will learn to compensate.

 

[charid]

He looks like he has grown a lot and gotten stronger from your previous picture. From your picture, it looks like he is able to bear weight on his leg. If he is able to hobble around on it and eat and drink on his own, I would not give up. Guineas are pretty resilient birds and can learn to compensate if given time. In a previous post, I mentioned my Guinea hen who broke her foot. For the first 6 months or so after it happened, she really struggled and wouldn't really leave the coop. Now (almost 2 years later), although she walks really funny, she does a pretty good job of keeping up with all the others. Maybe with a bit more recovery time, he too will learn to compensate.

Actually he isnt putting any weight on it anymore. Ever since the rubberband incident he has gone 1000 steps backwards. He doesnt even paddle with it now since this morning. When I inspected him this afternoon I saw the hock joint is suddenly deformed. That occurred since Monday which was the rubberband mishap so...I dont believe a swollen deformed hock joint will ever recover function. That ruins his whole leg. Everything above the joint is now ineffective even if functional and everything below is lame. I wont give up until a vet tells me its necessary.

I am embarrassed to say this but im going to fork over the money to get it checked because if there is a chance in him recovering function and living a quality life I will take it. If not and he is going to suffer I need to know that too so I can not be selfish and let him go .

I have taken care of him from day 1 to day 26 for the eye first and then leg. There is a line you should never cross as a wild bird owner. I crossed it. I have buried 6 of my favorite birds,all manageable because they got to taste life. Ground dust bath sky wind rain flock free range having babies...they lived and they died. Baby has not lived yet.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote:
I'm sorry.

 

[guineapeeps]

Actually he isnt putting any weight on it anymore. Ever since the rubberband incident he has gone 1000 steps backwards. He doesnt even paddle with it now since this morning. When I inspected him this afternoon I saw the hock joint is suddenly deformed. That occurred since Monday which was the rubberband mishap so...I dont believe a swollen deformed hock joint will ever recover function. That ruins his whole leg. Everything above the joint is now ineffective even if functional and everything below is lame. I wont give up until a vet tells me its necessary.

I am embarrassed to say this but im going to fork over the money to get it checked because if there is a chance in him recovering function and living a quality life I will take it. If not and he is going to suffer I need to know that too so I can not be selfish and let him go .

I have taken care of him from day 1 to day 26 for the eye first and then leg. There is a line you should never cross as a wild bird owner. I crossed it. I have buried 6 of my favorite birds,all manageable because they got to taste life. Ground dust bath sky wind rain flock free range having babies...they lived and they died. Baby has not lived yet.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope you are not too hard on yourself. I would probably be doing the whole vet thing myself, so I couldn't fault you for doing this. It is hard not to get attached when you spend so much time and effort trying to help. If you figure out how to NOT get emotionally attached, let me know, I could use some pointers! I hope you get some good news at the vet....let us know!

 

[harley587]

Actually he isnt putting any weight on it anymore. Ever since the rubberband incident he has gone 1000 steps backwards. He doesnt even paddle with it now since this morning. When I inspected him this afternoon I saw the hock joint is suddenly deformed. That occurred since Monday which was the rubberband mishap so...I dont believe a swollen deformed hock joint will ever recover function. That ruins his whole leg. Everything above the joint is now ineffective even if functional and everything below is lame. I wont give up until a vet tells me its necessary.

I am embarrassed to say this but im going to fork over the money to get it checked because if there is a chance in him recovering function and living a quality life I will take it. If not and he is going to suffer I need to know that too so I can not be selfish and let him go

.

I have taken care of him from day 1 to day 26 for the eye first and then leg. There is a line you should never cross as a wild bird owner. I crossed it. I have buried 6 of my favorite birds,all manageable because they got to taste life. Ground dust bath sky wind rain flock free range having babies...they lived and they died. Baby has not lived yet.

oh Charid, I'm so sorry to hear about his decline. please keep us updated after you get back from the vet.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Report on keets:

All 25 keets happy and thriving in new, temporary coop. We moved the brooder inside the new coop and propped open the door. They started coming out 10-15 minutes later. First night they slept in the hay next to brooder, second night we had removed the brooder and they slept with most of them under the remaining (unplugged) MamaHeatingPad and a row of them outside it on the hay. Third night the higher perch (about 30 inches high) is filled with keets and remaining are on green grass below (which means they are in the part of the coop with no tarp on the ceiling, open to the sky except the hardware cloth). We got a heavy rain today but the earth drained pretty fast, though I am worried they might take a chill.

Will add more high perches. Wow, so interesting.

 

[Nickeyo]

So I have 5 adult guineas and 27 keets (when I say keets I mean 14+ weeks old). The keets are getting big and some of the oldest are going bald on their heads, so I'm trying to introduce them to the adul guineas, they have been in a run writhin the Guinea aviary for 2 weeks and get along fine but as soon as I let them all mix the adults turn evil, how long will it be before they accept the little ones as flock members??