Sigh, another bum leg thread

I didn't notice anything that would indicate bumble foot. My initial thoughts are that it's a sprain that has gotten progressively worse. I'm saying that because it's been about a month since I initially noticed it. I would think a fracture would be immediate? Or I guess she could've had a slight fracture and when she used it without healing properly it just became worse.

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate your help!

Dave
I agree with your assessment that it may be a pulled or sprained tendon or ligament, most likely jumping down from a high roost or other high place. You're right, you shouldve isolated her when the incident first occured. Walking and running around since the initial injury has made it worse.
Do NOT give her any types of antibiotics, by your description there's nothing to indicate a bacterial infection.
The best thing you can do is keep her isolated in a cage or crate for rest and relaxation, limiting movement. You dont want her up walking around causing more serious injury to her leg. You can continue adding vitamin B complex to her feed which might help speed up recovery. In a weeks time release her from the cage and see if there's improvement, if not, put her back in the cage and continue the vitamin B complex in her feed. Take her out of the cage again in one week and see if there's improvement. If not, recage her and stop the vitamin B complex in her feed. I've dealt with plenty of these types of injuries. It takes time for leg injuries to heal. They can take a week, a month, sometimes several months to heal, or never heal at all. If she doesnt heal, it then becomes a quality of life issue, then you have to make a decision whether to continue caging or culling her. Releasing her with the other birds will cause fighting, aggravating the injury and upsetting the pecking order. I've had a very good success rate treating hens with leg injuries such as your hen, not so good with roosters.
However in your case if your hen had been caged sooner, she would have a better chance healing and recovery.
I recommend that you lower roosts inside your coop if they're too high and eliminate other high places in your yard that they can jump down from to cause injury.
 
Dawg, thanks for your help. As of now she doesn't seem to be getting any better. I didn't notice any discoloration on her leg, but it's pretty feathery down there! I'll keep doing what I'm doing for about a week and make a decision then. This morning she didn't look too happy so I was going to post an ad on Craigslist to see if someone could put her down for me....I'll still wait, I just want to see what options are out there. It's tough to be upbeat about it if she's not improving but I'll keep on hoping. Her quality of life is the first priority for me...it's just a very fine line and I want to make the best choice for her.

Success stories like you just told me give me a little hope, we'll see.

Thanks for your insight!
 
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So I put a post on CL to see about putting down a chicken and within an hour I got 5 responses. 4 were to put it down quickly (mostly from nice farm folk) and 1 admonishing me that I haven't done everything possible to help it out and saying that I shouldn't even own chickens. After some thought, I admitted they were right (although their delivery was pretty harsh).

Shortstack now has an avian vet appt on Thursday. I'm ultimately responsible for her and have to take the necessary steps before I put her down. I'm also fortunate enough where I can afford a vet visit so I will do that.

As the chicken turns..... :)
 
So I put a post on CL to see about putting down a chicken and within an hour I got 5 responses. 4 were to put it down quickly (mostly from nice farm folk) and 1 admonishing me that I haven't done everything possible to help it out and saying that I shouldn't even own chickens. After some thought, I admitted they were right (although their delivery was pretty harsh).

Shortstack now has an avian vet appt on Thursday. I'm ultimately responsible for her and have to take the necessary steps before I put her down. I'm also fortunate enough where I can afford a vet visit so I will do that.

As the chicken turns..... :)
The admonishment was uncalled for, that person isnt in your shoes and most likely has no experience in dealing with chicken leg injuries...probably doesnt even own chickens.
Let us know what the avian vet says. Thanks and good luck.
 
I hate feeling like someone is not being nice when you are just looking for advice. The leg issues are a hard one to deal with and I learned the hard way not isolating one and doctoring it then next thing you know I have 10 with it and if I had just put it down I would not have lost the 10. I truly think sometimes when they get it in the leg it is viral because some no matter what I did they never got over it. It turned out to be the best when we put them down to not spread it to everyone else. I have had some I isolated and get well so I think there is a chance. I do reccomend hand santizer. When you touch your sick bird isolated put hand sanitizer on your hands before you go take care of your healthy flock. So I hope your vet is alot of help to you and let us know what they say because that information is always helpful to us to.
 
Dave, I sure do hope the avian vet can identify her problem and get her on the road to recovery. There's always hope until there isn't, and you'll know when that is.

You don't need anyone else to put her down for you. When it came time to put down my sweet roo with the broken leg, a kind soul here on BYC told me how to do it. It's painless, non-violent, and easy on everyone. You get to hold your pet chicken while she leaves this world, and she will simply go to sleep.

Take a can of engine starter fluid, found in all auto parts sections of stores, and spray a generous amount on a cloth. While holding your little hen, simply cover her face and beak with the cloth. She will begin to snore. Shortly after that she will convulse as her system shuts down. Don't be alarmed. She isn't aware at this point, and will quickly go limp. The starter fluid is probably something you already have in your shop and are familiar with. It's mostly either and a sedative they used to use to put people under for surgery 60 years ago.
 
So here's the update...

Vet couldn't find any fractures or anything in her right leg. 2 out of the 4 toes moved on the 'deep pain test', meaning she didn't have any sensation on the other two. This leads him to believe it's a neurological issue, most likely a pinched or possibly broken sciatic nerve. She hobbles around like her foot is asleep.

Without doing an xray ($250), he can't tell if anything is wrong with her pelvis or not. The best option for us at this time is getting a cortisone shot which may relieve any pressure on her nerve (this was $60 but includes the next visit free).

She has lost a lot of weight so he suggested that I put on her on the highest calorie diet I can, this includes honey, molasses, grains, Gatorade, and Karo white syrup, meat, greens, etc...He also insisted that she stays inside with us in the house (in a cage) for the foreseeable future due to the cold outside. Since it's getting into the teens overnight, she is using up fuel to keep herself warm and this will help alleviate this problem. This makes sense as she was having the hardest time of our 3 when temps got below 0.

If she doesn't start showing improvement in the next week or so we'll probably have to put her down unfortunately...but you never know and we're obviously hoping for the best.

My painful lesson learned here is that I should've isolated her and/or taken her to the vet immediately after I saw her having foot problems. It didn't really occur to me because she was acting normally.

I hope this little bit of information can help someone in the future.

I'll keep you posted, for better or worse.

Thank you again for your suggestions and help!

Go Shortstack! :)
 
I really don't think chickens do well on diets high in sugar and carbs, and salt. They can get diarrhea from the sugars which would make her lose more weight. You could boost her protein with scrambled egg, a good brand of dry cat food, as well as some gamebird feed that is at least 24% protein.
 
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So I had to put Shortstack down this morning, totally bummed me out. :(

She was eating a lot yesterday and was basically fine (other than her leg) but this morning she was having trouble breathing (opening her mouth and stretching her neck). This had happened a few days before but she was fine yesterday. The doc said it was obviously a respiratory deal. I buy that but he didn't have an answer as to why she wasn't doing it yesterday. Who knows? Ironically, the cortisone shot actually helped her leg a little bit.

After you hand feed a chicken and listen to them breathe you can't help but get attached to them.

Thank you for all your help/advise and I hope someone might read this thread and get a little information from it.

Dave
 

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