splayed leg question

[anniemary]

My baby chick has splayed legs. She was walking sort of ok, but not perfect. My husband and I did the band-aid solution we found here. She hated it and toppled over on the pine shavings. She had a really hard time walking. She also started looking lethargic and kept moving her head slowly up and down like she was snoring. Is she panting?

She had such a hard time walking I was worried she wouldn't get to the feeder. So I removed the band-aid. When startled with the other chicks she will get up and run. Otherwise, she just lays there moving her head up and down with her eyes half closed.

Should we still intervene and fix her legs? Any other thoughts on how to help her?

 

[threehorses]

I posted this on two other posts, but it applies here also - if you could please read the following and answer the questions. Only instead of growth feed, your baby likely needs Starter (depending on her age - one of the questions).

I'd add that you're seeing 'bobbing' which is a breathing difficulty. This could be because of heat, or environmental conditions of another kind. For you, temp of the brooder and the humidity or wetness of conditions there will be very important answers to the questions.

Actually all of the questions were chosen to rule out specific illnesses. But I'll want to focus on those with you to rule out brooder pneumonia.

In addition to the other questions, is there really good ventilation in the brooder area?

You can intervene and splint. Glenda Heywood has a post on here about chicken orthopedics if you need it. You should also address this as a nutritional need until proven not to be. If you do, you'll be healing two birds with one action as an ill bird needs nutritional boosting anyway.

Here's the questions from the other posts that I ask you also follow. Thanks! I really hope we can help!

***

First, so that we can most accurately help you, we need a big of flock history. Could you please read the questions in the second sticky post in this forum, and then answer those questions here in this thread?

Also, please tell us the following:

What is the brooder temperature? Are the babies huddling together, or spread out evenly, or tend to stand near the edges of the brooder?
Are the babies near older birds - in the same room, etc? Do you have another flock?

Are the babies from a hatchery, a feedstore that buys from a hatchery, or from a private breeder?

Are you feeding a feed medicated specifically with Amprolium? Is it grower? Or starter grower? Is it 95% of their diet, or are their additional foodstuffs?

When the sticky asks for weight, they also mean the feel of their weight. In other words, pick each chick up. Are their keel bones sharp, or are they weighty chicks? Do they have droppings sticking near their vent?

Smell your feed. Can you smell a strong fresh smell? Or is it a bit like the smell of the bag? How do you store your feed? In what quantity did you buy it? What brand?

Have you been using anything in the water? Any other products?

Then finally, please tell us every condition with your babies. If they're in a brooder outside, has it been rainy? Do they spill their water into their bedding? What bedding or flooring? Everything that seems insignificant is actually important. Sometimes the smallest pieces of a puzzle are the ones that finish the picture for you.

All of the questions I've asked are asked specifically to rule out something that I have in mind. So I ask you to please be patient and answer each one thoroughly. (I don't give grades heheh Everyone passes if you just answer all the questions clearly.) Please think for a monent before you send the final answers just in case something pops up that you remember.

In the mean time, in any case where you have stressed or ill birds, then you should boost their nutrition to give their bodies some fuel with which to fight the illness. It also boosts their immune system, which is always good.

First, continue feedint them grower crumbles. First thing in the morning, first meal, make a damp mash of the following:

Crumbles
Water (1/4th cup) and plain yogurt (2 heaping teaspoons) mixed together in a cup
Boiled egg yolk mashed with a little water til it's a paste. (Save the portion of yolk that you don't use in the freezer for later).
Mix those together til the crumbles are barely moist. Let it sit. You want to make it just so wet that you can ball up a bit in your hand and it will stick, but if you drop it back into a bowl it'll fall apart into crumbley clumps - not glops. You can always add water - but can't take it away. smile

If you feed that first thing in the morning, they'll eat it more readily.

Also please buy Enfamil baby vitamins (PolyViSol, not the added iron formula). I got mine at Walmart in the vitamins section. Two drops per baby per day for 3 weeks or until symptoms decrease (or until different symptoms pop up indicating something else).

The reason I recommend vitamins like this individually fed is that they contain oil-vitamins which do best when given in food, not water, and eaten quickly because vitamins degrade quickly in light. (Which is why they're in dark bottles.) So you KNOW they're getting the vitamins.

Many vitamin deficiencies cause these symptoms. Riboflavin, D3 (calcium/rickets), A deficiencies, etc. All of those vitamins are in Enfamil in a very bioavailable form. IF this is a deficiency, it will help not harm - and might get them improving. (You have to give it a few days - it takes time to develop, it takes time to fix.) If it's not a deficiency then the supportive nutrition will be important.

I look forward to your reply with the answers to the above. Thank you for putting the effort into it so we can put the effort back into helping you. smile

 

[onthespot]

When my roo was hatched he had mild splayed legs. My friend put him in a coffee mug with paper towel padding so all he could do at night was sit there with his legs under him. It really helped him and in two days he was right. His babies don't have splayed legs, nor did his second generation babies out of his own daughters. Okay, ONE did, but that is out of many dozens.

 

[cloverfarmgirl]

I've only done this with newly-hatched guinea keets, but it should work with chicks, too. Check out this site: http://www.thecozynest.com/pictures.htm and scroll down to the section on splayed legs. I cut pieces of the fuzzy pipe cleaner (don't use red because the others will peck it) and braced its legs in place (the right distance apart). I put one right above the "knee joint" and one at the "ankle." I've saved five of them so far by doing this. Some learn to hop, and others just lie around. You can sprinkle food around so that it can reach it.... periodically, use a dropper to give it water if it's not able to reach the waterer. I did this for about a week. You can take the braces off and just see if there is any change. If not, put them back on for awhile longer. They grow and develop so quickly, that their legs correct themselves quickly, too.

As a brooder, I use a big clear plastic storage container and line the bottom with paper towels covered with the rubber drawer liner (non-skid that you use in your kitchens cabinets and drawers). You can usually find it for around $1 a roll at Family Dollar stores. For the splayed legged ones, I fix up a little box inside the big box with its own food and water (put in a ring box or something shallow), to keep them protected from the others.

It's a little bit of trouble and sad to watch them, but mine have always turned out okay. In a week or two, I could never tell the formerly splayed ones from the others. Good luck. I hope it works out for you.

 

[anniemary]

Im so sorry it's taken me so long to reply. We had a family reunion and then I've been in bed sick with a bad cold all day today.

At this point, the stressed chick looks great! Her head is almost all fluffy again and her bottom is nice and clean and fluffy. I really think it had been a dried umbilical cord issue and not pasting. The other chicks have left her alone now that we got the red light and I think that's contributed to her healing.

Our little splayed leg chick is still not doing all that well, so I'll answer the questions as they pertain to her.

1) What type of bird , age and weight.
Buff Opringtons. 20 pullets, 2 cockerels. They were shipped Wed. 7/8, I received them Thur. 7/9 so today I think they should be about 5 days old.
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
She doesn't appear to be eating/drinking. She mostly lays around unless my hand enters the brooder and then she runs away like all the other chicks. When she is laying there, her head bobs up and down very slowly like she is falling asleep and then waking herself up.
3) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
She has splayed legs
4) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
I believe that's how she arrived. The chicks were sitting at the post office for about 5 hours before I could pick them up.
5) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
I am feeding them Sprout Chick Starter/Grower and Friday night I started adding electrolytes to the water
6) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
All the poop has looked normal, I think.
7) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
On Thursday night, we used the band-aid treatment on her legs for about two hours. She couldn't walk well and started with her sleepy head bobbing thing. I worried about her getting food and water, so after two hours I clipped the band aid so she could walk--splayed, but she could walk to the feeder. On Saturday morning, my husband reapplied the band-aid treatment. This time, he made it so she could walk better. She is able to waddle to the feeder now. My husband also fed her water with a dropper on Saturday before we left for the reunion.
8 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
We would like to treat her ourselves or give her a humanely end to her suffering if it comes to that.
9) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
No picture
10) Describe the housing/bedding in use
She is in a huge cardboard box about 3 x 4 feet. We are using pine shavings. The waterer was getting shavings and poop in it, so I tried to put it on an egg carton to raise it up. The chicks ended up tipping over the waterer, so I changed the entire bedding. The waterer is directly on the shavings as in the beginning. The box is on our enclosed porch that has two windows and a door. I open the windows for ventilation.
What is the brooder temperature? Are the babies huddling together, or spread out evenly, or tend to stand near the edges of the brooder?
I haven't been able to find a way to measure the temperature. I've been watching the chicks behavior. The red light is 250 watts, significantly hotter than the white light we had been using. I raised the light to the top of the brooder when I saw they were avoiding it. Then, we had a cool night on Saturday when we came home from the reunion and I noticed they were huddled together, but not exactly under the light. I closed the windows a little more and lowered the light. Sunday, we've had to raise the light because they are avoiding it again. I've posted a picture below to show you what is happening as of Sunday afternoon.
Are the babies near older birds - in the same room, etc? Do you have another flock?
No
Are the babies from a hatchery, a feedstore that buys from a hatchery, or from a private breeder?
They are from Ideal
Are you feeding a feed medicated specifically with Amprolium? Is it grower? Or starter grower? Is it 95% of their diet, or are their additional foodstuffs?
They have only been getting Sprout Chick STarter/Grower.
When the sticky asks for weight, they also mean the feel of their weight. In other words, pick each chick up. Are their keel bones sharp, or are they weighty chicks? Do they have droppings sticking near their vent?
I don't feel their bones when I pick them up. They seem to be growing well. The splayed chick is significantly smaller than the others, now. And she seems bonier. Today, Sunday, I noticed yellow poop stuck to her bottom, so I immediately cleaned it and have separated her until she dries because I notice the other chicks can really peck at you if you look even remotely different.
Smell your feed. Can you smell a strong fresh smell? Or is it a bit like the smell of the bag? How do you store your feed? In what quantity did you buy it? What brand?
The feed smells fresh. It's in a plastic bag on our porch. We bought a 50 lb bag of Sprout Chick Starter/grower, non-medicated becuase we have never had chickens on the property before. We bought it at Fleet Farm and that's what the associate told us was ok to buy.
Have you been using anything in the water? Any other products?
On Friday night, started Vi-Tal water vitamin, elctroolyte and mineral supplemant from Ideal.
Then finally, please tell us every condition with your babies. If they're in a brooder outside, has it been rainy? Do they spill their water into their bedding? What bedding or flooring? Everything that seems insignificant is actually important. Sometimes the smallest pieces of a puzzle are the ones that finish the picture for you.
Overall, everyone is looking great! They are feathering out nicely. The stressed chick looks like she's fitting in much better. They will all peck at eachother sometimes. Sometimes two will stand up to each other in a face to face confrontation that last about a second. Ive checked all their bottoms and they look nice, fluffy and clean, even the stressed one.

I would like to know how to keep the water cleaner. Now that I'm more careful to keep it level, the bedding is staying drieer. They seem to spread the feed all around the feeder.

I think the splayed one needs more one on one attention with some hand fed water/feeding. What should be the schedule for this?

I will attempt the suggestions you gave and see how the splayed leg (we call her Y) will do. If she has a resperatory problem, do I need to worry about it being contagious?

So, overall...how am I doing???

 

[threehorses]

I think it sounds like you're doing wonderfully. Temperature could be one of the reasons for her seemingly sleepy demeanor. It could be that when they were in the post office, she chilled a bit for what ever reason. It could also be that she has a simple failure to thrive, very common once you get into higher numbers of birds. That's why nutrition is important - to try to catch her up.

I have to suspect bedding, but only at the first, for one thing. I usually start my young babies on something like rubber shelf liner (the one that has holes in it) because they tend to slip less and tend to have correct legs more. She also could have a slight inability to absorb nutrients quite as well as the others - or might have started, in hatch, with less ability - or it could even be a glitch in that line of birds. I also have Ideal hatchery chicks, often have when I buy "fun" chicks. This year I also had one that definitely was a weaker bird. She's a weaker breed, but her sibling had no issues. She didn't splay, but was definitely a sleepy and sometimes inattentive bird that tended towards pasty vent.

Interesting that you say about some leftover from hatching, "Gunk" is my little name for it. I've tended to find that birds that had some of the 'factory glue' still stuck from the inside of the egg after hatching also tend to be some of the babies that fail to thrive. I'm sure there's a correlation, probably something to do with the breeder's nutrition or humidity or nutrients of the yolk. But I find it more often than not.

With those chicks, I just always start them out with more nutrition. Well everyone really, but I make sure they get a little pampered from the start. You can start that now. Give her a little spare - a little egg yolk, the glop I listed before (it's good for all, essential for her), etc.

I would try again on the orthopedics because it's important that they be on now to allow her legs to stay in the right place when strengthening and as all the muscles grow and come in and set around the position in which they find the legs.

As for her being lethargic, all the more reason for her to get the vitamins directly in the beak rather than in the water (where they degrade in light). And the yogurt.

As for your feed, if the porch is around 75 or less degrees, and the plastic bag is completely light proof, that should be fine. If it's clear, you must put it in something light-proof to protect the vitamins.

I sure do hope you feel better! let us know how this baby does, please. Everything seems mostly like just splay leg from bedding or a possible failure to thrive issue. Her bobbing sounds like she's just lethargic and sleepy, not respiratory.