Splayed leg chick

One of my "teenagers" 9 wks developed splay leg and taping is only moderately helping. Anyone have any other suggestions that might help? Is this some kind of nutritional deficency? I've never had a bird develop this problem this old befor. I've had it three times in new chicks and the tape method worked on two of them with very good success. I hate to put her down, especially as she is the blue I'm breeding for but, will have no other choice if I can't find something that works so...we have nothing to loose & will try anything
Thanks all, for any help you might have to offer!

Hi Sarah--as you know better than I, Silkies have some pretty unique nutritional needs. I had a baby blue jay I raised once and not knowing that the dog food I was feeding (at the vet's recommendation) him was low in calcium he developed beak and leg malformations.

Possibly keep up the taping and add additional mutivitamines--I keep thinking those biore nose strips might work well has a brace--they are a little stiffer than bandaids and you could put several on to increase the strength. You wet them and they dry stiff a little like cast material.

Let us know what happens.

I hope someone has more advice.

i owuld pour cod liver oil or shark liver oil or vit e with selnium down its throat three times a day, and rub the leg all the way up to the top of the drumstick with arnica montana...

hope the weather is getting cooler for you. i now have three frizzled cochins, two red, one with leg feathers, and one without, and one white that doesn't display the f gene but is heavily feathered... how are all your chickens?

tf

edited to add put her on wire flooirng for a while... so the leg doesn't slip out from under her so easily...

This message was edited Jul 13, 2008 4:47 PM

Hey Tamara;

Life is generally good here. Our Monsoons have finally come and the temps been under 100 for the last two days. Good thing as I lost 3 birds to the heat, including that beautiful buff Ahnold. It was very strange, he was just dead one morning. I have my suspicions that he may have had a visit from a big racer snake that I found in the yard a few days later. He looked like he was trying to burrow into a corner when I found him. Between the heat & the scare…??? .I also lost 4 chicks to “piling” during a wind storm. Of course, two of them were blues! Now I have to go separate them all into smaller groups when ever it looks like we will get weather! Chickens are such …CHICKENS!

Thanks for the advise. I’ve got everything except the Selenium which I’ll pick up tomorrow. I’ve got her in the nursery on shavings with the babies but, I will move her into her own box with rubber shelf liner and see if that helps until I can work out the wire flooring. I wonder if that “egg carton” stuff would work. It’s that white plastic stuff they use to cover lights that has all the small grid squares. I use it in my coolers to keep stuff out of the melted ice water and have a piece that will fit into that box as I use old ice chests/coolers to raise my chicks in. They keep out drafts, are insulated, easy to clean & can be found cheap at yard sales.

Hey, congrats on your Frizzles! I have my first Blue Splash Sizzles this time and at least three blues & blacks that I consider are the type I’m breeding for. Got a lot of Frizzled Silkies (AKA Frilkies) from this third generation. Also got some VERY strange and different stuff…but, that’s why I “play” the way I do. I enjoy the suprizes!

Thanks again for the advise!
SS

Catscan...thanks for the info. The taping is a method I got from (forgive me) someones site. Basically you tie the legs together at the top with a little space between, rather like horse hobbles. It keeps the legs from splaying so far apart until the body can build the strength to controll them. It's worked on both of the two chicks I've ried it on but, they were only a week onld. This chick presented differently and much later. When I first spotted her limping, her left foot was curled up and pulling up under her and she didn't seem to have much control over the leg. It was almost like nerve damage but the other leg has grown progressively weaker also although there isn't the foot curling happening there. Putting the "hobbles" on has helped her be able to get around at least enough to feed herself but I can't say the legs are getting any better. She is on medicated chick food & electrolites w/ vits but, again, not enough improvment is happening.

I'll try the codliver oil & selinium tomorrow and move her onto different flooring tonight. I'll let you all know what happens.

Thanks again so much for the suggestions!!!
SS

I tried the band-aid hobble on my wry-necked Silkie before I figured out that it was nutritional problem. If your little guy's problem is metabolic/nutritional, you should see very rapid improvement. Here's hoping for the best!