We’d all want our baby chickens to come out healthy when they hatch, and we would all want our chicks to grow with no issues or health concerns when growing up, but issues do sometimes develop, issues that may be very concerning to you, issues like a chick sitting on its back legs
This article looks into why a chick may be sitting on its back legs.
Table of Contents
Chick sitting back on legs:
Chicks are quite fragile animals, they can easily be injured and are prone to a variety of symptoms. Knowing this, if your bird starts showing strange behavior it would be reasonable for you to be worried.
A chick who is sitting on its back legs likely has a condition called spraddle leg. Here is what you need to know about it:
Spraddle leg in chicks:
If your bird is sitting on its back legs, then this means that the bird’s legs can’t keep the bird up.
Spraddle leg causes one, or both, of the bird’s legs to slip when upright and this causes the bird to not be able to stand or walk.
The bird may be born with this condition or the bird may develop this condition early on in its life.
Causes of this condition:
Knowing why your bird developed this condition can help you prevent spraddle leg from developing in your other birds.
Here are the possible reasons why your bird developed spraddle leg:
- A riboflavin deficiency
- Too high temperatures in the incubator
- Large temperature variances in the incubator
- The bird walking on slippery floors (like newspaper) after hatching causing the leg to not develop properly.
Treatment:
Thankfully, this condition can usually be easily treated if you spot the condition and take action early on. However, this can become permanent if your bird is left untreated.
The first line of treatment, and the easier way to try to rectify the spraddle leg in your bird, is to support the bird’s legs until the legs can support themselves.
The bones of baby chicks are quite soft and pliable so, they can be manipulated pretty easily and will become stronger as the bird gets older. Because of this, you can strengthen them if they are weak.
Do this by helping the bird stand, help the bird stand by wrapping vet wrap around one of your bird’s legs, and then connecting the other bird’s legs using vet wrap so both legs stand.
You can leave the vet wrap on the bird’s legs for a couple of days. The bird should gain some strength in its legs over these few days.
If the bird seems to have spraddle leg because of a vitamin deficiency then you can resolve this problem by giving the bird Nutri-Drench as treatment
You can also add riboflavin-rich foods to the bird’s diet. Foods that are rich in riboflavin include eggs, broccoli, as well as leafy greens.
If your bird develops spraddle leg because the floor that it was walking on is slippery then you can install a rubber shelf liner, a bath towel, or paper towels at the bottom of your brooder.
This will help the bird’s feet grip better.
This will keep the bird from slipping on the slick flooring that you may have had before.
A bird with this condition may be trampled on by other birds so it is recommended that you keep it isolated while it recovers.
You can keep spraddle leg from developing in your birds in the future by making sure that the temperature settings in the incubator are maintained and that the temperature settings do not fluctuate while the next set of eggs are incubating.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Do Ducks Hide Their Babies?, Egg Broke Inside Of Duck, Why Do Ducks Bite Your Feet?, How To Communicate With Ducks, How To Play With Baby Ducks, Duckling Keeps Getting Stuck On Back, Why Does My Duck Jump On Me, How Does A Mother Duck Take Care Of Her Ducklings, Why Does My Duck Lay Flat?
