Sprain vs. fracture

[Romaana]

Hi guys, how would I know whether my chicken has a sprained leg or a fracture?

My roo was startled and fell off the roost this morning. He hopped to a corner and didn't move. I picked him up to check if there's a break on the leg that I can see, but the leg is not visibly broken.

Could it just be a sprain? He isn't moving around.

I have isolated him away from the flock and given him a low dose of aspirin this morning and at midday.

 

[Kiki]

Can you take a clear video of how he is trying to walk and upload it to YouTube?

How old is he?

 

[Romaana]

He isn't trying to walk at all, I have him in a small pen, he's just shuffling his way about, barely getting up at all. When he hopped away to hide from the other chickens this morning, he held the injured foot up, curling his toes and tried to balance using his wing.

He's 7 months old. A barnyard mix, about 5kgs (11lb)

 

[JJSmith2]

Hi guys, how would I know whether my chicken has a sprained leg or a fracture?

My roo was startled and fell off the roost this morning. He hopped to a corner and didn't move. I picked him up to check if there's a break on the leg that I can see, but the leg is not visibly broken.

Could it just be a sprain? He isn't moving around.

I have isolated him away from the flock and given him a low dose of aspirin this morning and at midday.

I see this post is about two months old. I am dealing with a similar issue. Can I ask how things turned out for your rooster?

 

[Romaana]

Hi there, it turns out that my boy had a sprain. He was up and walking again within the week, but the swelling did worsen substantially before it got better.

I didn't do much to help other than try (and not succeed at) immobilizing him for a few days, giving him aspirin and applying arnica gel to the foot.

I'm assuming he had some soft tissue damage as well as there is still some inflammation on the foot.

A learned poultry keeper suggested that he had an infection and recommended that I put him on antibiotics, but I chose not to and I'm glad that it wasn't an infection.

 

[Romaana]

The advice given to me was that if it was a fracture, I'd physically be able to see a break in the foot.

I was also asked to check under the foot properly to make sure that he didn't have bumblefoot.