aliciaFarmer
Songster
For the past couple of days I thought my 10 month old Olive Egger was on the verge of going broody as she was sitting in the nest boxes for longer than usual each day just like all my other broody's have before sticking with it. Last night she roosted on the floor next to a very low roost where some of our month old chicks now sleep. I thought for sure then she was broody.
Fast forward to this morning, she was still sitting in the same spot right next to the food bucket and I decided to move her because that is right in the entryway of the chicken house and not a good place to sit on eggs. When I put her back down, I noticed she wasn't able to stand on her own. I immediately separated her from the flock and put her in a large dog kennel because I'm overly paranoid and although I've never had a sick bird, my mind goes there first every time. She's only been in there about 15 minutes and is in full sight of the rest of the flock -- I just don't want her humped if she has a leg injury or intermingling if it's a communicable disease. I just added bedding and a roost (which is probably just annoying since she can't jump up). She's eating like a champ. I just fed her some plain yogurt and egg yolk with a bit of their normal Scratch and Peck organic feed. They are well fed and I can't imagine there to be any sort of deficiency unless there is another underlying issue. Her belly and crop feel normal, she doesn't have bumblefoot or any visible injury or scab. After watching her for a long time I realized it's just one foot that is causing the problems and she's holding it up. The roosters have been overzealous with her and she has feather loss on her back. I just bought her a chicken apron and am in the process of building a second coop for her and a couple other girls with similar back/feather issues (we have 2 boys and 17 girls, plus 17 babies from 4 days to 5 weeks of age). Their feed is dry and not moldy or expired but they free range every day on our almost 7 acres so it's possible that she could have gotten into any number of things. We don't have any toxins or poisons on our property as far as rat killer or weed killer or anything but we live in Oregon where everything is wet and potentially moldy. Not in their coop but piles of leaves and such. Plus lots of mushrooms (not that I've seen any eat them, but anything is possible at this point). She has been laying normal though taking a longer time the past 2 days but does not seem to be egg bound. She laid a normal egg about 18 hours ago. Vent looks normal though a tad dirty from sitting all night. Tail drooping, but she's not super puffed up. As a flock, egg production has dropped a tiny bit (a dozen eggs a day on average from 15 layers -- 2 of the aforementioned girls are just coming out of a broody phase) but there has been some stress around the flock with a huge snowstorm and tree that fell on their coop with such force the nesting boxes fell, followed by the selling and removal of chickens from the flock three different times, all within the past 6 weeks (sold 14 chickens in 3 batches). Still, those are great laying rates so not bad/enough of a drop to concern me.
I took a video but the site won't upload it because it's too large. I'll see if I can create a YouTube account and I put it there to link it here in a few. (Video added a couple of comments below.)
The reason my mind went to Marek's is because A, I am overly paranoid as I mentioned and B, a few wild birds have flown into the chicken house in the past few weeks which already had me on edge and overzealously watching my girls and boys.
This photo is pretty pointless but you can kind of see how she's not putting any weight on her left foot (which I didn't notice until now is a tad smaller than the other).
I don't vaccinate my birds but that's a whole separate topic.
I'd love to hear what anyone thinks. If it could be just an injury or if it looks more like a disease. I will try to get that video up next. It's pretty heartbreaking to see her tripping around like that.
Actually, here is the video:
Fast forward to this morning, she was still sitting in the same spot right next to the food bucket and I decided to move her because that is right in the entryway of the chicken house and not a good place to sit on eggs. When I put her back down, I noticed she wasn't able to stand on her own. I immediately separated her from the flock and put her in a large dog kennel because I'm overly paranoid and although I've never had a sick bird, my mind goes there first every time. She's only been in there about 15 minutes and is in full sight of the rest of the flock -- I just don't want her humped if she has a leg injury or intermingling if it's a communicable disease. I just added bedding and a roost (which is probably just annoying since she can't jump up). She's eating like a champ. I just fed her some plain yogurt and egg yolk with a bit of their normal Scratch and Peck organic feed. They are well fed and I can't imagine there to be any sort of deficiency unless there is another underlying issue. Her belly and crop feel normal, she doesn't have bumblefoot or any visible injury or scab. After watching her for a long time I realized it's just one foot that is causing the problems and she's holding it up. The roosters have been overzealous with her and she has feather loss on her back. I just bought her a chicken apron and am in the process of building a second coop for her and a couple other girls with similar back/feather issues (we have 2 boys and 17 girls, plus 17 babies from 4 days to 5 weeks of age). Their feed is dry and not moldy or expired but they free range every day on our almost 7 acres so it's possible that she could have gotten into any number of things. We don't have any toxins or poisons on our property as far as rat killer or weed killer or anything but we live in Oregon where everything is wet and potentially moldy. Not in their coop but piles of leaves and such. Plus lots of mushrooms (not that I've seen any eat them, but anything is possible at this point). She has been laying normal though taking a longer time the past 2 days but does not seem to be egg bound. She laid a normal egg about 18 hours ago. Vent looks normal though a tad dirty from sitting all night. Tail drooping, but she's not super puffed up. As a flock, egg production has dropped a tiny bit (a dozen eggs a day on average from 15 layers -- 2 of the aforementioned girls are just coming out of a broody phase) but there has been some stress around the flock with a huge snowstorm and tree that fell on their coop with such force the nesting boxes fell, followed by the selling and removal of chickens from the flock three different times, all within the past 6 weeks (sold 14 chickens in 3 batches). Still, those are great laying rates so not bad/enough of a drop to concern me.
I took a video but the site won't upload it because it's too large. I'll see if I can create a YouTube account and I put it there to link it here in a few. (Video added a couple of comments below.)
The reason my mind went to Marek's is because A, I am overly paranoid as I mentioned and B, a few wild birds have flown into the chicken house in the past few weeks which already had me on edge and overzealously watching my girls and boys.
This photo is pretty pointless but you can kind of see how she's not putting any weight on her left foot (which I didn't notice until now is a tad smaller than the other).
I don't vaccinate my birds but that's a whole separate topic.
I'd love to hear what anyone thinks. If it could be just an injury or if it looks more like a disease. I will try to get that video up next. It's pretty heartbreaking to see her tripping around like that.
Actually, here is the video:
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