Painful, wonderful swellings on the elbows of birds, baby peafowls.

[GreenFarmRonaldsvlei]

Hello backyard neighbors

I have a question about an illness or injury.

We had another opportunity to hatch two peafowls with a chicken.
They hatched at the end of January and are now almost 3 months old.
We're sure one is a girl and one is a boy. You can probably see it in the pictures.

We noticed yesterday that one (the young lady) has swollen elbows, and it looks a little sore.
Maybe not really swollen, something like corns on the elbows?
The elbows also feel very warm, a sign of an infection.

We applied a little Vaseline to the swelling yesterday evening. But we haven't noticed any improvement today.
On the contrary, she lifts her left leg a little, and it's shaking. When she walks again, she dangles a little at first.
That's a clear sign of pain.

Now, does anyone have any idea what this could be? And what do you think we should do?

 

[Yardfulla poopers]

I don't know what it might be but I would apply triple antibiotic ointment (with no pain relief stuff in it) rather than vaseline. If it is infected, that should help. It may not hurt to also see if you can get some infant vitamins in her (iron-free poly-vis-ol a fee drops in her beak a couple times a day).

 

[GreenFarmRonaldsvlei]

Hi Yardfulla poopers, thank you very much for your message.​

Yes, of course you're right. We only used Vaseline the first time to make everything more pliable and softer.​

On the other days, we dabbed the wounds with a light saline solution in the evening and then applied an antibiotic cream.​

After my first post, she had no further signs of pain. She's still very active and had a normal peafowl childhood, I think. ​

Her wounds look much better. I'd like to know what they could be? Or if there's a direct treatment for. We'll try to visit the vet sometime.​

I took two more pictures for you.​

 

[KsKingBee]

It is a definite injury, perhaps she got tangled up in something. Carry on as you are instructed and she will be fine in a few weeks.

 

[GreenFarmRonaldsvlei]

It is a definite injury, perhaps she got tangled up in something. Carry on as you are instructed and she will be fine in a few weeks.

KsKingBee, hi, thank you very much for your reply.​

I was hoping for your opinion, you confirm my suspicions.

The mother hen (a chicken) was in a different enclosure because she no longer wanted to support her peafowl chicks.
The chicks were taken back by us and sleep in the house.
During the day, all the peafowls are together on one side of the property, and the chicken are on the other side. The peafowls are allowed to switch sides as needed.
But sometimes they see their chicken mother hen and want to be close to her.

I think she tried to slip through the fence and sustained this injury.

The chicken mother hen is sometimes a little aggressive and I don't want the peafowl babies to have these bad experiences.

A real peafowl hen doesn't give up her chicks after two months, like a chicken mother hen does with chicken. Peafowl chicks have long bonds with their parents, I heard up to a year, but I think it will be a long time if they continue to live together.
Peafowls are much more social than chickens, and there's no comparison. Chickens can only take over the incubation and maybe run with the chicks for a month.
Then you should raise the chicks yourself to avoid aggression.
And trying to introduce the chicks to a group of peafowls of their own breed.
We've noticed that young peacocks are also interested in chicks. As we've seen, our peacock is trying to show the chicks how to catch butterflies.

That's the small difficulty when trying to hatch peafowls with chickens.
We did that a year ago with a peafowl hen and had good success. But it was an only child, and we gave the chicken mother hen away so that she has no contact with her and only accepts us humans as parents.

We're very happy that we've now discovered what caused these injuries on the peafowl chick.
Thank you all very much for your help and support.

 

[KsKingBee]

You are welcome.