Pain relief for injured chicken.

[Bunty144]

What can I give an injured chicken for pain relief. She has an injured leg - possibly broken. She has a 3-day-old chick and I don't know what happened. I've cleaned and strapped the leg and put her and baby in a crate, but she's obviously in pain.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I've heard about giving chickens like maybe half, or quarter of a baby aspirin. Not sure which though.

@Kiki
@azygous
@Wyorp Rock

 

[Kiki]

Can you post a video of her?
Upload it to YouTube and link it here...
Or some pictures of how she is standing?

 

[Kiki]

I skimmed through some of your other posts...
Do you have Marek's disease in your flock?

Do you feel a broken one or does it look like she is losing the ability to move a leg like some of your birds in the past maybe?

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your hen. Do you have any pictures to share? Aspirin is used for pain sometimes but can be toxic to chickens when used for more than a couple of days. If I were going to give it I would try to give 1/4 tablet of 81 mg low dose aspirin once or twice a day for 2 days. The study below if you scroll to the end shows that aspirin 5 mg per pound daily can cause bleeding after 5 days. A low dose aspiring is 81 mg. Meloxicam from a vet would probabaly be a better choice. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09712119.2012.692328

 

[Bunty144]

Can you post a video of her?
Upload it to YouTube and link it here...
Or some pictures of how she is standing?

Night time here in South Africa. I'll show you a video in the morning.

 

[Bunty144]

I skimmed through some of your other posts...
Do you have Marek's disease in your flock?

Do you feel a broken one or does it look like she is losing the ability to move a leg like some of your birds in the past maybe?

Oh no there was a trauma. I think my little old grumpy dog may have gotten too close to her chick, and she probably flew at him and he reacted. Pretty sure that's what must have happened.

 

[Kiki]

Oh no there was a trauma. I think my little old grumpy dog may have gotten too close to her chick, and she probably flew at him and he reacted. Pretty sure that's what must have happened.

What part of the leg feels broken?

Can you get a pic?

 

[azygous]

Sorry about your hen. Do you have any pictures to share? Aspirin is used for pain sometimes but can be toxic to chickens when used for more than a couple of days. If I were going to give it I would try to give 1/4 tablet of 81 mg low dose aspirin once or twice a day for 2 days. The study below if you scroll to the end shows that aspirin 5 mg per pound daily can cause bleeding after 5 days. A low dose aspiring is 81 mg. Meloxicam from a vet would probabaly be a better choice. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09712119.2012.692328

Scientific studies can offer a broad variety of conclusions. Studies that are relatively short term and use a very limited number of subjects offer less "take-it-to-the-bank" conclusions than longer term studies using a broader sampling of subjects. Here's one that included laying hens along with young meat birds. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123526 The conclusion was that aspirin became less effective at reducing pain over time. No mention of any adverse effects.

I've been keeping chickens for thirteen years and I've administered aspirin to chickens for a couple reasons. My first use was for a young rooster that appeared to be having seizures. I gave him an 81 grain aspirin daily for a couple of months to try to prevent heart attack or stroke. A few other chickens have received very long term aspirin therapy for leg pain. Many chickens of mine have received short term aspirn therapy for pain management. None of them appeared to suffer from any ill effects, including the longer term cases, meaning that no change in their behavior was observed.

Aspirin has a blood thinning property and even in some people, this causes serious issues. I have a friend who ended up in the ER from too much aspirin use. This is a risk with aspirin, so most of us that use it, limit its use to short term. I continue to see no problem with using aspirin for short term pain relief for my chickens or even occasionally long term use.

It's your call in the end.

 

[Bunty144]

Sorry about your hen. Do you have any pictures to share? Aspirin is used for pain sometimes but can be toxic to chickens when used for more than a couple of days. If I were going to give it I would try to give 1/4 tablet of 81 mg low dose aspirin once or twice a day for 2 days. The study below if you scroll to the end shows that aspirin 5 mg per pound daily can cause bleeding after 5 days. A low dose aspiring is 81 mg. Meloxicam from a vet would probabaly be a better choice. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09712119.2012.692328

Thanks so much. I feel that just a day or two would be all that's necessary. I don't have aspirin. Is Ibuprofin any good?