- Jun 27, 2012
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This is my first post, although I have "browsed" many times. I'm hoping some of you more experienced w/ chickens will be able to help me.
I have a roughly 11 week old Easter Egger that is dragging one of her legs. She's not putting any weight on it at all. There isn't an obvious break and no cuts. It isn't stuck out at an odd angle. She allowed me to touch and prod her leg from toe to hip without any obvious signs of pain/distress. It just sort of hangs there freely from the hip. Her injured leg seems to be as warm (as in normal temp) as the uninjured leg. She is bright-eyed and attentive. She is also eating and drinking. The only odd thing (behaviorally) is that she isn't staying w/ the other 8 EE's that we have. (We have 29 chickens total, but the EE's usually hang out together.) But considering her limited mobility, that's not really surprising.
Diet wise, the birds are free range w/ rations offered inside the coop. (We only today started feeding them scratch. Up 'til now they were given the layer feed. We provide oyster shell to them for calcium.) In my limited experience, the free range birds seem to get more of what they need naturally and often don't even eat a lot of the offered feed. We also supplement w/ fruits and vegetables that we get from a local produce stand. They have plenty of water available to them. A waterer in the coop, plus they have one of those big oval metal waterers we were using for the pigs, and several 5 gallon buckets. (I never knew they would drink out of such things, but because they do there is plenty of water for them.)
The other symptom is she has a large, squishy crop. But after reading some of the posts here, I'm going to wait and check on her first thing in the morning and see if she just has a healthy appetite. (I didn't notice a bad smell, but I wasn't looking for that when I was looking at her.)
I hope that isn't too much info.
Thank you in advance for any help you can offer, and hoping I'll be able to help y'all in the future.
Dawn
I have a roughly 11 week old Easter Egger that is dragging one of her legs. She's not putting any weight on it at all. There isn't an obvious break and no cuts. It isn't stuck out at an odd angle. She allowed me to touch and prod her leg from toe to hip without any obvious signs of pain/distress. It just sort of hangs there freely from the hip. Her injured leg seems to be as warm (as in normal temp) as the uninjured leg. She is bright-eyed and attentive. She is also eating and drinking. The only odd thing (behaviorally) is that she isn't staying w/ the other 8 EE's that we have. (We have 29 chickens total, but the EE's usually hang out together.) But considering her limited mobility, that's not really surprising.
Diet wise, the birds are free range w/ rations offered inside the coop. (We only today started feeding them scratch. Up 'til now they were given the layer feed. We provide oyster shell to them for calcium.) In my limited experience, the free range birds seem to get more of what they need naturally and often don't even eat a lot of the offered feed. We also supplement w/ fruits and vegetables that we get from a local produce stand. They have plenty of water available to them. A waterer in the coop, plus they have one of those big oval metal waterers we were using for the pigs, and several 5 gallon buckets. (I never knew they would drink out of such things, but because they do there is plenty of water for them.)
The other symptom is she has a large, squishy crop. But after reading some of the posts here, I'm going to wait and check on her first thing in the morning and see if she just has a healthy appetite. (I didn't notice a bad smell, but I wasn't looking for that when I was looking at her.)
I hope that isn't too much info.
Thank you in advance for any help you can offer, and hoping I'll be able to help y'all in the future.
Dawn
