Hi all, I am having trouble with my week old silkie.
My chicks have been living in their brooder for just about a week now. They have been living on pine pellets since they arrived. Everything was going swimmingly until yesterday morning when I checked on the chicks. One of the silkies was laying alone, on her side, with one of her legs bent slightly out from under her. I picked her up, examined her foot/leg and saw that there were no apparent external injuries. I put her back in the brooder and she scurried back to the others.
About two hours later, I checked on her again, and she was almost being dragged by the same leg by the biggest chick (she's the smallest of the group, and it appears that she's at the bottom the pecking order). This time I picked her up and looked more closely, noticing that her hurt foot was kind of curled in. I stuck her foot to a band aid to keep it from curling in.
I partitioned part of the brooder off for her.
As that was yesterday, today I took the band-aid off of her foot. She continued to limp around, so I replaced it with a new one.
She's now spending the majority of her time sleeping on her blankie (a towel). I have seen her eat and she has food in her crop, but I haven't seen her drink anything much, so I've been using an eyedropper to give her one or two drops of water when I go in and check on her.
What should my next step(s) be? Is there anything I should be doing differently, or I should do in addition to what I'm already doing?
Please help.
My chicks have been living in their brooder for just about a week now. They have been living on pine pellets since they arrived. Everything was going swimmingly until yesterday morning when I checked on the chicks. One of the silkies was laying alone, on her side, with one of her legs bent slightly out from under her. I picked her up, examined her foot/leg and saw that there were no apparent external injuries. I put her back in the brooder and she scurried back to the others.
About two hours later, I checked on her again, and she was almost being dragged by the same leg by the biggest chick (she's the smallest of the group, and it appears that she's at the bottom the pecking order). This time I picked her up and looked more closely, noticing that her hurt foot was kind of curled in. I stuck her foot to a band aid to keep it from curling in.
I partitioned part of the brooder off for her.
As that was yesterday, today I took the band-aid off of her foot. She continued to limp around, so I replaced it with a new one.
She's now spending the majority of her time sleeping on her blankie (a towel). I have seen her eat and she has food in her crop, but I haven't seen her drink anything much, so I've been using an eyedropper to give her one or two drops of water when I go in and check on her.
What should my next step(s) be? Is there anything I should be doing differently, or I should do in addition to what I'm already doing?
Please help.
Last edited:
