Topic: Limping Chicken?

[Smileyk]

Question for you experienced chicken keepers.  One of ours is limping.  I've had a look at her foot and can't see anything obvious.  Do we just leave her and keep an eye on her or what?  She will weight bare and will sometimes walk on it but the rest of the time she holds it up or limps.

We've had the chickens a week now and today they have free ranged properly.  We tied the dog onto a long lead and then let the chickens out.  They are GROSS!  They've fought over worms, eaten slugs and worst of all found a baby mouse and killed it!  DD2 was in tears but has recovered now that we've talked about nature.  We found the rest of the nest and hid them but I'm not sure the mother will come back as we moved a large bag of earth which was on top of them.  Ho hum.

[kt.]

If you can, separate her from the others.  Place her in a cage where she can still be seen by the others,  but  give her time to self recover.  If you do not - the others will see her as a weak link and she will get pecked bullied and weaker.  Ensure she has her own food and drink supply. 

You will usually see an improvement within 2-3 days because she will not be walking all over the place on an injured foot.  If you are overly concerned then there is always the vet,  but you cannot really do much other than let her rest to aid recovery.

[Old bird]

Hiya SmileyK

I brought my limpy chicken home as she was very bad and the other were attacking her and making everything much worse.  She never went back!  She is now at home and has her own house and uses my house as her 2nd home!

She still limps though - although she is a heck of a lot better I don't think that she will ever walk or run without a slight limp.  She must really have hurt herself to be that bad - but she is happy as Larry now!  She "runs" to me when I call her and her gait is real comedy now as she legs it accross the lawn with her limpy run and a huge rate of knots with wings out!  Pure comedy!

She climbs over the labrador when she is on the sofa watching telly and she then sits on the edge of the sofa - just enjoying "being part of the family".  She has porridge oats in the morning - dried - and if I don't get them out quickly enough I get jabs to my trouser legs as a reminder!  So with careful planning even the dog may get on with them without having to be tied!!

You wait - one day soon - you will be going on worm, snail and slug hunts with them!

Kt's remedy is good though!

Old Bird

 ;)

[Smileyk]

Thanks.

Weirdly enough she seems totally fine today and wasn't limping at all!