Last week my beautiful cochin rooster got into a fight with another rooster who escaped the roo pen. Unfortunately he was the loser and after only a 15 min fight I found him lying in a hiding spot. When I picked him up he couldn't put weight on his one leg. He moved around to different spots but spent the day sitting mostly although still interested in the ladies not mating. The next day and those after he started going from moving to different spots to sit to not moving at all from his spot. I brought him into the house and checked for a break again but nothing apparent plus no bleeding. Decided to make an appointment to see the vet which took a day or 2 to get in. The best vet we have sort of just deals with parrots and domestic mammals but has some avian experience. He didnt seem to think the leg was broken or dislocated and it could just be inflammation or deep pain going into his leg and causing a sort of neurological issue. I went home with Metacam for pain relief and imflammation. During this whole time his appetite is great and drinks fine. He started to seem to regain feeling in his leg because when i shift him he squaked but never did before or shows ambition to get away from me when I approach. I have never heard of what this vet is talking about...is this real? He never took an xray bc he didnt think it was a break or dislocation. He thought if he had no feeling in his leg at all he wouldn't regain use of it but because at the time he still had feeling he thought he might recover. I don't know what to do at this point. Should I just let him recover for 6 weeks nd then if no change put him down or should I take him to another vet who may not know anything more? I'm planning on buying enough metacam for at least another week or 2
Yes of course. I said I would go 6 weeks and see. We are at 1.5 weeks now but I guess I just question whether he is right and if that actually exists as he says it may. Maybe he just sprained it bad and needs time to heal. My knee sprain took 5 years to recover! Just hard to tell if he's in much pain!
The vet didn't xray? If you feel that the vet missed something - you may want to consult them with your concerns. Did your Cochin suffer any wounds from the fight other than leg injury? Are you keeping him separated/penned so he stays fairly immobile while he heals? If not, then you may want to place him in a kennel inside the run, if he stays calm enough. Give him some poultry vitamins in his water a couple of times a week and offer extra protein like egg, tuna, mackerel or meat. Leg injuries can take a while to heal. Hopefully you will see some improvement in a couple of weeks. Keep us posted.
No he didnt xray. Here in Canada an xray like that is fairly expensive although he didnt say that. I guess he just seemed certain enough it wasnt broken or dislocated. He was on metacam for 12 days but I haven't seen any improvement really and I am concerned. Should I have him on metacam longer? This stuff is really expensive. 5 days is $32.
And yes he is in his own run on a comfy cushiony pad...he always shifts his weight so its not on the bad leg side. His eating seems to have gone from great to only ok so I started giving him 3 meals of mixed foods plus his feed but he seems to have lost some weight. Can metacam be hard on the system?
