Broken inner toe - splint possible, or try boot?

[ChicoryBlue]

Annie here had pronounced limping yesterday, I think she broke it stumbling out of the run a few days ago. I gave her .5 ml of children's liquid Tylenol last night which turns out is underdosing at 2.6 kg. Seeing no bruising today I gave her 1/2 baby aspirin (40mg) six hours apart. I tried to make a boot today, but it was too flexible and I didn't secure it well enough. It lasted less than four hours.

I ordered a set of plastic boot splints from My Pet Chicken. I might be able to make a better more secure boot myself while I wait, or is this splintable on just the single toe with a wrapped q-tip or toothpick, and vet wrap over all? It appears to be a break after the first digit? What would y'all do?

Her whole foot is definitely warm, whereas the other is cool.

 

[DobieLover]

Poor girl.
Sadly, chickens breaking their toes is not that uncommon. There really isn't much you can do for her other than crate her in the coop with the others to limit activity until the bone starts to heal.
I have had 2 birds that have broken their toes and I left them alone. They are just fine.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Poor girl.
Sadly, chickens breaking their toes is not that uncommon. There really isn't much you can do for her other than crate her in the coop with the others to limit activity until the bone starts to heal.
I have had 2 birds that have broken their toes and I left them alone. They are just fine.

Thank you very much! First I’m going to try to make a shoe that will stay on.

 

[Eggcessive]

Some chickens have curled toes that may not have been noticed earlier, and those would be painful to try and straighten. But if it is a new fracture, I would think there would be green bruising and swelling. I wouldn’t splint it just because splinting sometimes can cut off circulation and cause more problems if the tape or vet wrap slips. I have had a couple of toe injuries and it is normal to limp for a week or two. I would avoid giving acetominophen to chickens because it can be toxic in large doses. Pain meds also may cause her to use the foot more instead of resting it.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Some chickens have curled toes that may not have been noticed earlier, and those would be painful to try and straighten. But if it is a new fracture, I would think there would be green bruising and swelling. I wouldn’t splint it just because splinting sometimes can cut off circulation and cause more problems if the tape or vet wrap slips. I have had a couple of toe injuries and it is normal to limp for a week or two. I would avoid giving acetominophen to chickens because it can be toxic in large doses. Pain meds also may cause her to use the foot more instead of resting it.

Thank you! Good points some of which occurred to me too. I hadn’t considered whether I just didn’t notice this until now, though I think it is new. I’ll check pics. If it’s not new, then she’s limping for some other reason, or it healed badly?

The toe doesn’t look bruised, but there’s some swelling at that joint and it is noticeably warm to the touch (the other foot is cool). I wasn’t looking to see if it was warm at first, because the foot isn’t discolored, the warmth just jumped out at me when I was holding her to look at it.

The toe is very loose, not stiff, it moves easily from “normal” to pointing sideways, and she doesn’t / can’t control it. The rotation of the toe pointing out is fairly firm and I have not tried to rotate it to a “correct” position.

I was conservative with the children’s Tylenol, but wanting to give her something for the night. I measured out a small chicken’s dose of .5 ml = 16mg for her, though she weighed 2.6 kg that evening. The children’s Tylenol is 160 mg per 5 ml., and the dosing found elsewhere on BYC is to use 10mg per kg? So she got less, about 6-7mg per kg.

However, I’ve since found she will gobble up half a flavored baby aspirin when it’s broken into two quarters. This was way easier and less stressful for both of us than putting small amounts from the syringe into her beak (three lower beak fulls to get her to drink that .5 ml) so after that one dose of acetaminophen, she’s instead gotten 40mg aspirin in the morning and late afternoon.

I agree if she uses her foot more, then the pain med is counter-productive. Thank you for bringing that up. My thinking on it has been if the toe is immobilized then foot use is okay. However I agree that the bandage itself could create more and worse issues for her and I am paranoid about that. I am currently of the mind to immobilize it, with monitoring, only for the daytime, and let her roost without anything. But I am on the fence about it. I may decide to just let it go.

Is there truth to what I read that curled toes can be painful even after healing, and that is why one would try to have it heal as straight as possible?

 

[Eggcessive]

Well, curled toes are many times a result of incubation temperature or humidity problems. Those can be corrected right after hatching in the first couple of days. But you may have read that trying to correct those later when the chicken grows can be painful and rather impossible. If your hen’s toes are that pliable it could well be broken. I still would probably not splint them, but it is up to you how to deal with it. Here is the link I usually give for the taping of toes in a baby chick where the toes are put in the normal place and tape is applied on bottom and top for several days:
https://www.mypetchicken.com/blogs/...kmlKV4dIOPTrvt4U4OUKH_992k7N4vCdP_VdCVXRUmmKA

For a grown chicken if you look on page 23 of the link below they have a diagram of a foot splint for broken toes:
https://theiwrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Duerr_Splinting_Manual_2010.pdf