Receiving a clutch of baby chicks in the mail, or hatching a clutch of baby chicks is very exciting.
Unfortunately, this excitement may be short-lived if one of your baby chicks is limping. If your baby chick is limping then read on
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Baby chick limping:
Unfortunately, not all baby chicks come out healthy, some may come out of the shell limping.
A possible reason why your baby chick may be limping may be that the bird is injured.
Injury:
Baby chicks are very small and fragile, because of this, they can quickly become injured. Grown adult chickens are usually easily injured but baby chickens are the most vulnerable.
Your baby chick may have become injured if the other chicks jumped on her, or the injured chick may have jumped off of a high height and injured herself.
In addition to the limping, if the baby bird has an injured leg, then the leg will likely be swollen, red, and warm to the touch. The bird will cry out if you try to pull on the injured leg, or even try to touch it.
What to do:
Isolate the bird:
The first thing that you’d need to do is isolate the injured bird, you can do this by making the baby bird its own enclosure to recover in.
Leaving your injured bird in an enclosure will keep other birds from knocking into her and injuring her even more.
Isolating the bird will also give her the opportunity to rest and relax as she recovers from her injury. Leave a part of the enclosure under a heat lamp so that the bird can stay warm as she recovers.
Install deep bedding on the bottom of the cage to make the bird more comfortable. Allow the bird to move, or move her yourself, to keep pressure sores from developing on the bird’s body as it recovers in the enclosure.
You’d need to splint her leg if you think it’s broken. Splint the leg making sure that it is kept straight the whole time, this will allow the bird’s leg to heal.
Offer her food and water:
Place her food and water sources in close proximity to her in the enclosure. You can contain the bird’s food and water in something small, measuring cups will do.
You may have to pick her up and take her to her food and water if she can’t get to them herself.
Give the bird a chick starter feed as her main food source and add electrolytes and vitamins into the bird’s water to help her with the healing of the leg.
Give the bird additional protein in the form of scrambled eggs or mashed-up boiled eggs.
If she isn’t drinking that much water, moisten the bird’s food with milk or cream to get more hydration into her. Giving your bird one drop of Poly-Vi-Sol twice a day will also help.
Poly-Vi-Sol is used to give chickens a boost of vitamins and minerals, this is helpful for ill and injured birds.
Giver her time to heal:
Your bird will likely need a lot of time to rest and heal, allow her to do so under the light.
The bird should be doing better after a week or two. You can release her back to the other chicks when she has fully recovered.
If she doesn’t recover you may have to take her to the vet for additional examination and treatment.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other chicken related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Chicken Attacked By A Dog And Is In Shock, Open Wound On Chickens Neck, Chickens Wound Smells, Vetrx For Scaly Leg Mites, Dislocated Hock Joint Chicken, Black Spots On Chicken Legs