What is up with chick’s legs??

[LiliesAtDusk]

I work at a farm store and I brought home a chick that we can’t sell. Her legs stuck straight out behind her and one leg seemed to be injured when I got her home and took a closer look. It was swollen, had an small, oozing wound, and wouldn’t bend. I thought maybe an injury from being shipped packed in with who-knows-how-many other chicks while her legs were like that. I found posts about chicks with ONE leg that went backwards, but none for chicks with BOTH legs going backwards. Also nothing about chicks whose leg was messed up in the way her bad leg was. She is kept separate from the other chicks I have, of course.

She is TWO WEEKS OLD. I got her on the 10th of this month the day she came in, and it’s the 25th now. She is barely growing and is not feathering at all. She’s a block copper maran and I have another maran chick who is YOUNGER, 3 times her size, and beginning to feather out. She weighs 37 grams without anything in her crop.

Anyway, I wrapped the bad leg in a decent position with vet wrap hoping it would heal, then made a modified hobble that held the legs forward (like a regular hobble, but with a piece that looped around the neck to keep them forward). I changed things and checked on the leg as frequently as I dared (I was afraid the bad leg might be broken and didn’t want to keep jostling it as I removed and applied new vetwrap)

The good leg was doing fine. She could move the toes and could bend it, it just didn’t want to adjust to the new position. A checked every other day or so for the legs to stay forward and they never wanted to. The toes on the bad leg even started to move ever-so-slightly sometimes. Or seemed to, at least.

Fast forward to the day before yesterday, I noticed that her good leg’s toes were now curled like the bad leg’s. I didn’t think much of it and decided to wait until morning to make any changes so I could monitor because I had thought her bad leg was broken and didn’t want her to muck it up overnight.

I took everything off yesterday and something has gone terribly wrong

Neither leg moves except for at the hip. There is skin in between her thigh and lower leg on the good leg that won’t let it extend (not that she seems able to move it on her own anyhow) That’s the first and second picture. I don’t understand why the leg doesn’t move now. I feel bad for not paying enough attention to it because maybe if I had caught it sooner, I could have taken everything off and prevented… whatever is going on. They stay forward now, but at what cost, y’know? I don’t know if it’s even related

The bad leg… well, that’s picture number three and four.

I don’t know what’s up there, either. That little knobby part is hard and when I hold onto it, she can make her lower leg move (not the toes, just the leg). It is NOT where the leg wants to bend it wants to bend just behind that part and that is NOT where the other leg bends if I move it myself. When I got her, the leg was so swollen that I had no idea there was a lump there. It is solid, like there’s a bone in there.

I fear something is dislocated or broken up in there.

She eats on her own if either propped up or food is within reach. I hand-water her with water mixed with a bit of feed to supplement in case she isn’t getting quite enough on her own. Her toes do not move and are curled under.
Does anyone have any idea what is up with this poor chick’s legs? Is there anything I can do? I am not opposed to having a house chicken if I can undo even some of the damage. She’s a sweetheart and I’m down to try pretty much anything.

I feel like such an idiot, but within a couple days, her one leg went from healthy to nothing. I don’t even want to GUESS what is up with the other. But that’s why I’m asking y’all.

 

[nuthatched]

Do you have anyone who's willing to euthanize? Unfortunately, usually visible deformity is a sign of internal deformity, abd hers a pretty severe.
I'm sorry, I think it would be best to put her down.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi,

Since it's seeming to digress as it gets older, it sounds like a severe vitamin deficiency. It might take both vitamin and physical therapy to get this chick possibly near normal.

I'd get some B-complex, either human pills or the cherry flavored liquid. If you get the human pills, she needs 1/4 of one per day and if the liquid, 1/4 of a dropperful. I'd continue this for a few weeks, then see how she's doing.

For the curled toes, you might want to tape them onto a small piece of thin cardboard, like cereal boxes are made of.

To get it to eat more, try wetting the chick crumbles in a small dish. Ours think that's a treat. Scrambled eggs might go over well too.

Here's some links you might find helpful:

Slings: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/versions-of-chick-chairs-please.1166308/ See posts 5, 11-14.

Slipped Tendon:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...and-caring-for-the-special-needs-chick.72163/

Splayed or spraddle legs:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/splay-leg-and-spraddle-leg-treatment.78240/

Wishing you luck!

 

[LiliesAtDusk]

Do you have anyone who's willing to euthanize? Unfortunately, usually visible deformity is a sign of internal deformity, abd hers a pretty severe.
I'm sorry, I think it would be best to put her down.

I do have someone who would be able to. I’m a certified veterinary assistant, but our classes and the practice I had been working at just didn’t cover birds with anything more than a few slides. I’d like to go ahead and try with the vitamins that someone else recommended because she doesn’t seem to be in any pain and she’s very spunky, but if nothing works, I have already spoken to a friend of mine at the clinic I go to about the potential (and, let’s be honest, likely) outcome.

 

[LiliesAtDusk]

Hi,

Since it's seeming to digress as it gets older, it sounds like a severe vitamin deficiency. It might take both vitamin and physical therapy to get this chick possibly near normal.

I'd get some B-complex, either human pills or the cherry flavored liquid. If you get the human pills, she needs 1/4 of one per day and if the liquid, 1/4 of a dropperful. I'd continue this for a few weeks, then see how she's doing.

For the curled toes, you might want to tape them onto a small piece of thin cardboard, like cereal boxes are made of.

To get it to eat more, try wetting the chick crumbles in a small dish. Ours think that's a treat. Scrambled eggs might go over well too.

Here's some links you might find helpful:

Slings: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/versions-of-chick-chairs-please.1166308/ See posts 5, 11-14.

Slipped Tendon:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...and-caring-for-the-special-needs-chick.72163/

Splayed or spraddle legs:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/splay-leg-and-spraddle-leg-treatment.78240/

Wishing you luck!

I’m going to give this a try, as I did see a few posts about the curled toe thing just before I posted. It’s strange that she’s the only one, but who knows what’s going on internally when she already had a deformity in the outside? Up until just the other day, I had been wondering if maybe she’d just have one bum leg, but then the other one declined. Then the curled toe paralysis stuff came up just as I was getting on here and now I’m wondering. I’d count myself very lucky if that’s the fix for at LEAST the good leg

 

[Debbie292d]

I’m going to give this a try, as I did see a few posts about the curled toe thing just before I posted. It’s strange that she’s the only one, but who knows what’s going on internally when she already had a deformity in the outside? Up until just the other day, I had been wondering if maybe she’d just have one bum leg, but then the other one declined. Then the curled toe paralysis stuff came up just as I was getting on here and now I’m wondering. I’d count myself very lucky if that’s the fix for at LEAST the good leg

Well, since it came with a bunch of chicks to your store, I'd assume it had a lot of siblings who were all fine, and maybe for some reason this one was sent along before it should have been and it got trampled.

You sounded like you're wanting to try get it healed. I've dealt with a few similar over the years and most turn out fine, but we've culled a couple that just weren't improving. I don't mind handicapped chicks though as we have a pen with two in it that I raised from chicks who are now adults.

I forgot to mention, welcome to BYC!