Emergencies! »   lame hen

Would love some advice on my lame hen. She is a Black Rock and I have had her 3 1/2 years with no problems. A few weeks ago, I noticed she was a bit lame on one foot.
I have had a look at it and cannot see any visible problems....she is flexing her toes so dont think it is broken and she has not suffered any injuries as far as I know
Dont think it is bumblefoot as there is no swelling underneath...the only other thing I thought it might be was scaly leg but not sure if this would make her lame. The other leg/foot is fine as are the other hens.
She looks very well apart from her hop! the poor thing as resorted to sleeping in her nest box as I presume she cant hold on to her perch all night with one foot.
Any advice would be much appreciated....

Sonja

Sonja.

Sorry that your hen is having problems.

If it is scaly leg mites then that is a very easy problem to solve! It can cause lameness in very severe cases, but I think if it was that bad then you would have noticed it as it is quite easy to spot - all the scales are raised on the leg and some may even fall off. Are the scales on your chickens' legs raised? If the answer is yes, then it is almost certainly scaly leg mites - the mites live under the scales and push them upwards.

This is a photo of someone's chickens on the forum when they had scaly leg mites:

As you can see the scales are raised from the legs and several have actually fallen off.

Treatment for scaly leg mite simple. Gently wash off as much dirt as you can from her legs using a toothbrush and warm soapy water (just a little soap) - do it gently and do not remove any scales! Then try covering her legs with a layer of vaseline in a seven day cycle until the situation is resolved. This cuts off the oxygen supply to the mites under the scales. If her leg has not improved within a few weeks I would advise a visit to the vets...You can treat all the birds in your flock this way, even if they aren't showing signs of mites.

If the scales on your chickens legs aren't raised then I doubt it is scaly leg mite. It could be something as simple as that she has twisted or strained her ankle / foot. How high are the perches in the nest box? As she is quite a heavy breed and not a spring chicken anymore (ha, sorry, couldn't resist!) the perches shouldn't be any higher than 40cm where possible. Heavy or old chickens (6+ years) find it easier to injure their legs and feet by jumping from high perches, so the lower the better!

Finally, just as a precaution, you might want to keep an eye out for symptoms of Mareks.It's a horrible disease and I hope not the cause of your chicken's injury. The diseases causes tumours to grow on the chicken’s organs. It can also cause paralysis of the legs and wings (sometimes the paralysis will disappear several days later, although the chicken will not be cured) and can make the colour of the iris change from the usual orange to a cloudy grey blue colour. The chicken may lose weight too.

Sad to say there is no treatment for Marek’s disease, and unfortunately the advice tends to be to have the chicken humanely euthanized. There is a vaccine against Marek’s but this must be administered when the chicken is one day old, and is only on offer to large-scale chicken farming organisations. I did read something about a health tablet being helpful, have a read of this thread a few posts down:
http://www.hencam.co.uk/hencam_forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=394

And this thread might be useful to read too as it has some info:
http://www.hencam.co.uk/hencam_forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=484

A vet appt will help determine if Mareks is the problem.

Do you have a rooster? Sometimes a hen can hurt her leg (such as by jumping from a perch) and the rooster showing his affection can make the injury worse. If you do, maybe keep them separate until her injury is healed.

Also, make sure you are feeding them the correct feed (Layers Pellets) to be sure she hasn't got weakened bones due to a poor diet.

Leave your chicken be for a few days, check that she is eating and drinking as normal, and see if there are any other symptoms. Try not to let her do a lot of scratching or roaming - if she free-ranges but you have a coop and run then lock her in there with your other chickens for company.

If there is no improvement within 4 - 5 days I would get a vet appt and see what they suggest.

Sorry for the long post, i hope some of it helps

Red, get that book written!

No probs Sonja, hopefully it will just be a sprain and will heal in a few days

TM,

Posted By: chief chickenRed, get that book written!" />

It is written I just don't know what to do with it now :/

It's annoyingly difficult...there are very tempting sites offering to find the perfect publisher for you, but obviously they would like you contact and bank account details please

(apologies Sonja for thread-napping, if you have any other questions or problems with your chucks feel free to jump back in ;) )

You don't have to tell me about that...I refuse to look at any website that even asks for my email address, never mind anything else! And I never pay for things online with my credit card, I borrow Lyle's...very cautious, everyone always laughs at me

Unless you're Lyle...:D

Posted By: Red And I never pay for things online with my credit card, I borrow Lyle's...

I do hope your black rock is better.
My little rooster Roger arrived in a sack as a rescue and despite having badly deformed feet enjoys pottering about the garden with his girlfriends - 2 black rocks and a bantam.
He has had very bad scaly leg which a vet recommended treating by immersion in surgical spirit. This had limited success, and when a new holiday feeder saw him she suggested we use a commercial product. This certainly has removed most of the scales but left him with soft pink legs and feet. Two weeks ago I returned from holiday to find him staggering and unable to roost on his perch. I took him to see another vet who clearly thought I was mad bothering with a chicken but,as he looked bright and was eating and drinking normally prescribed antibiotics and a suppliment powder. Roger improved almost immediately and was back on his perch after a couple of days.
This evening though at bed time, I found him roosting on the floor again and was rather unsteady when I put him on his perch. I have just been down again to check, and phew, he is roosting happily on the perch, but . . . whats happening? Has anyone any advice please?

Ohh poor little Roger his poor little legs and feet must have been so painful after the immersion in the white spirit. It would have stung really badly and possibly burnt his skin. They are probably all soft and pink now because with scales gone the second product reacted with his already damaged skin, He hasn't the protection of the scales anymore so will be subsecptible to infection so the anti biotics and suppliments should be benificial.
The vaseline suggested by Red will certainly help to protect his legs from the cold and any more invasion from the leg mites, there is also a product called citricidal that you can get from the omlet site that may help.... check it out

https://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/shop.php?cat=Chicken+Keeping&sub=Vitamins+and+Tonics&product_id=207&product_name=Higher+Nature+Citricidal+-+45ml

You add that to the water but dont add it with the cider vinigar use one or the other. The spice is added with the food so that is also a good idea and certainly won't do any harm. I use it once a week for my hens.
For future reference Frontline is a good way to get rid of leg mites and any other sorts of mites that may be present and isn't painful for the hen. Or just use Vaseline as that will smother them but it takes a tad longer to work.

There are quite a few of us ladies "of a certain age" on here Jane. You're in good company.
Welcome.

Ha! You're talking to a woman with power surges once an hour...

How do you take ACV, NN?

Just come home from holiday to find Roger quite improved. Putting Vaseline on his legs has worked a treat and not only do they look so much more comfortable, there are only a few scales remaining.
Like me, all four are now on ACV, an organic version I finally tracked down in the health food shop.
It proved difficult to alter his perch in the existing hen house, so I put an upturned wooden seed box under his roost with a folded towel and some newspaper on it and now when he jumps down in the morning it is like jumping onto a sprung floor and hopefully does not jar his joints as much. I am so happy to see him resume his patrols round the garden dedicatedly following his girls like a solomn little white ghost all day long before leading them all home to bed.
My gardening season has now started in earnest, and whilst I have truly appreciated the help and company of my chooks, it became clear to me on Sunday that it was time to corall them again for the summer. Carefully nurtured broad bean plants were back kicked into the hedge, the top of seedlings were expertly nipped down beyond the point of recovery, dust craters have appeared all along the edge of the lawn by the path - true it is beautifully dry and dusty, but still . . . there are limits! Happily there is a large area that is just meadow grassed and I plan to make a large and moveable enclosure there so Roger will be able to rest up a bit more and enjoy the summer.
Before I close, I removed two very large ticks from one of my cats last night - do these vile parasites attack hens too?

I'm so pleased for Roger - what a great outcome! I don't know about hens and ticks, but an easy way to get them off cats (you might already know this) is to cover the part that is outside the body in KY Jelly (vaseline probably works too). It suffocates them and they fall off. Frontline works too - one of my cats once had 153 (that I saw and counted) at one time. He'd obviously slept in a tick nest or whatever it's called!

Luckily he was young and healthy at the time. I found about a dozen at first which I removed with tweezers, but hadn't realised that he must've had lots of tiny ones too (or he went back for a second dose!)

Overnight he started to go downhill pretty quickly - his nose, ears and gums went pale and he was very lethargic. It took me half a day to get some frontline because of vet prescribing rules, but once it was put on they started to drop off within an hour. Had to keep him in one place so that I could collect them up and dispose of them but they'd affected him so much he didn't want to move. They are vile things and look disgusting. Some were quite small but there were lots that were easily visible. Poor Joey, but he got over it OK.

did it have a very thin shell or no shell at all Jane?

Lucky you found the poor little cat when you did Kate. They lay in wait of a meal passing by in the long grass after they have fed and sated themselves they detach themselves and then digest and wait for another meal to pass by.

A shell-less egg (they have a rubbery translucent casing) are quite common and usually nothing to worry about at all. They look like this:



They can happen in young or old laying hens, at the beginning or end of a laying season...rarely it can be because the hen's aren't getting enough calcium, so if you don't give them any oyster grit or crushed egg shells (wash them first) it might be a good idea to try that. You can feed them high calcium treats too, such as cheese or yoghurt.

Very thin egg shells usually indicates a diet with not quite enough calcium too, so try the tips above too

!
My chickens rootle round free as well, Jane. I too lashed out on a pot of grit and was treated to very scornful looks and pointed spurning of said grit....

Hi Jane - it's a bit of a late answer but one of my girl's leg scales got quite dry and cracked and she started wobbling about as well, despite eating and drinking normally. I found the spray on scaly mite liquid worked wonders but as it was during a rainy season, once I sprayed her legs (which she seemed to enjoy), I waited till they were dry (which she also enjoyed as she got to be carried around for 5 minutes) and then applied a coating of vaseline to keep the medication in and the water/dirt out. You do have to re-spray every 5 days as that is the mite's breeding cycle. Regards, Volka.PS: Bracket was up and about like normal 48 hours and showing no signs of re-infestation.

Oh my god that's so sad, and poignant.

I'm glad that (with your help) he got to spend the summer with his girls and it's especially touching that he enjoyed the last day of summer for the year...

Definitely sounds like he was a real character, and that he had a really good life with you.

That is so sad Jane, but it sounds like he had the best life possible with you and his girls. I am sure you will all miss him, but he will be up there at the bridge having a good old crow with the other lads!

Thank you all so much - really appreciate your messages. The garden seems SO quiet this morning without the little fellow crowing!

Lots of happy memories of him though.

Hi Jane sorry to hear about your Rooster, it is so sad when they die, you gave him a lovely life so celebrate it with your happy memories.