Sick young Brahma

[Mallory835]

Help! One of my Brahma's is suddenly very sick. She is curled up with her eyes closed. When I lift her one leg seems to dangle and she is keeping her eyes closed. She won't eat or drink. I dont know if she maybe got her leg caught on something or if she is sick. What can I do to try to help her?

 

[TexasSam]

What about the other leg? Have you felt the leg all the way up and down to find any brakes. Last thing can you take a picture of the bottom of the foot and post it please

 

[Mallory835]

The other leg seems fine. She bends it when I lift her and will kick out with it. The other leg looked like it had a bit of blood but I could not find any cuts. She will not bend or move it at all. I can't tell if it is broken. I keep trying to get her to drink but she refuses to move.

 

[TexasSam]

The other leg seems fine. She bends it when I lift her and will kick out with it. The other leg looked like it had a bit of blood but I could not find any cuts. She will not bend or move it at all. I can't tell if it is broken. I keep trying to get her to drink but she refuses to move.

I can’t see well enough but looking for signs of bumble foot. You can also feel up a down the whole leg for a place that feels hot compared to the rest of her. If you can spread the foot out and send a picture maybe I can see about bumble foot

 

[TexasSam]

One more and more serious thing is she laying or about to?

 

[Mallory835]

I don't think it is bumble foot. I felt her leg and don't fee any obvious breaks or heat. I don't know if I would be able to tell if it is broken though. It is just weird that she was perfectly fine this morning and now she is listless. I'll try to post another pic. It is hard trying to get a good one.

 

[Mallory835]

No, she is not laying. We just got her about 2 weeks ago. The pet store did not know how hold she was but I figured around 5 weeks, so maybe 7 now. They said she was vaccinated. I assume for Mareks.

 

[Mallory835]

I have another Brahma that I bought with it and she is doing fine. No signs of being sick. She is going nuts since I separated them though. I'm worried that the hurt one may have gotten caught in the wire fencing we used to separate them from the older chickens in the coop.

 

[nightowl223]

I don't think it is bumble foot. I felt her leg and don't fee any obvious breaks or heat. I don't know if I would be able to tell if it is broken though. It is just weird that she was perfectly fine this morning and now she is listless. I'll try to post another pic. It is hard trying to get a good one.

Chickens are a prey species, which means they're the dinner animals for a lot of kinds of predators. Their instinct is to hide any problems, hide if they're feeling icky, hide if they're hurt in any way, so they won't be considered the easiest meal. That makes it very hard for us to figure out if they're hiding something from *us* so we can help them. Don't feel bad that you might not have known what happened until now. That happens more often than you'd think for chicken keepers (well, any featherbaby keeper, for that matter).

Check her crop, see if it's full. That may be why she's not interested in drinking right now. If it's empty, then we have to get fluids and nutrients into her. But, first things first.

Does she have any other symptoms besides not wanting to put weight on her leg? Drainage anywhere, swelling anywhere, etc. Is she underweight? Best way to check that is to see if there's muscle on the sides of the bone that runs down the center of her chest.

 

[TexasSam]

How much of the leg is loose all of it or partially. A broken bone would be loose at a particular spot if it is the whole leg. 6 or 7 weeks is far from laying so no bound eggs. Can you get a close up picture of her eyes?