Chickens, in general, do not belong to birds, the content of which is associated with particular difficulties. But only adults are hardy and unpretentious. Chickens, on the contrary, are tender and vulnerable creatures, they can be destroyed even by a light draft or an insignificant decrease in temperature. But sometimes in a healthy-looking chick, there is such a strange disturbance, like spreading paws: the bird cannot really stand up and seems to be sitting on a string. Experts reassure: the child can be helped!
The reasons
Before talking about methods of treatment, it is worthwhile to understand why a problem arises, because it is always better to prevent trouble than to deal with its consequences. It turns out that there may be several reasons for the "baby twine" in the hen-house, but all of them are somehow connected with the mistakes of the poultry farmer.
Sex in the hen house
No matter how trite, the solution may be the most primitive: legs at chick disperse because they slide.
Important! Under no circumstances should the floor in the poultry house where young animals are kept be smooth!In fact, this point should be taken into account even at the construction stage of the chicken coop, but if the mistake has already been made and the flooring was made, for example, from a tile or slippery linoleum, you can always correct the slip and lay it over the stationary flooring rough surface (many successfully use rubber for this purpose).
Since heat is very important for chickens, litter also plays a big role. It must meet the following requirements:
- absorb moisture well;
- absorb litter (it will save young livestock from infestation by parasites);
- protect against contact with cold floor;
- have a sufficiently large fraction, so that the kids could not peck it;
- be lightweight, inexpensive and non-toxic.
Find out what to do if a chicken cannot hatch itself, how to transport day-old chickens, how to determine the sex of a chicken, how to care for chickens after an incubator, how to use an infrared lamp to heat chickens, what can be given to chickens, how to cure sneezing, wheezing, coughing chickens and chickens.Newspapers and sand are poorly suited for this purpose, but straw or sawdust is an excellent choice. It should, however, be borne in mind that sawdust of hardwood trees usually have sharp edges with which chicks can get hurt, including trying to try interesting objects "on the tooth" (more precisely, on the beak), so it is better to choose sawdust of coniferous trees they perfectly absorb moisture and practically do not clump.
Incorrect egg incubation
If the reason does not lie "on the surface" in all senses, try to understand further. Perhaps, problems with the musculoskeletal system, in particular, too weak legs of the chickens are due to non-compliance with the conditions of incubation of eggs.
Important! The cause of the splits is very often overheating or overdrying of eggs during incubation. An additional clue is the small size (too high temperature) and the presence of scabs on the abdomen (too low humidity). Underheating and high humidity usually leads to other consequences: chickens are weak, sluggish, have whitish down and large swollen stomachs.
It is interesting, by the way, that they react to overheating of eggs and young turkey poults in the same way.
Both temperature and humidity at different stages of incubation must be correctly adjusted.
Thus, from the first to the sixth day, the temperature in the incubator should be 37.9 ° C, gradually decreasing to 36.8 ° C by the 15th and to 36.2 ° C by the 21st day (end of the incubation period).
The "twine" in chickens may be due to improper incubation.
In the matter of choosing the optimal moisture regime, the opinions of experts differ. Some believe that all three weeks in the incubator need to maintain high humidity (not less than 75%), because it provides the best digestibility of nutrients by the embryo.
Others argue that high humidity is needed only at the last stage of embryonic development of the chick, because at this time it especially needs oxygen, and therefore it is necessary to ensure better gas permeability of the shell.
Thus, it is advised to keep the humidity at the level of 50-55% for the first 10 days, then reduce it to 45% for a week, then, after 3-4 days before the end of the incubation, increase to 65%.
Did you know? In 2008, the results of studies by Russian scientists of the influence of humidity levels during the incubation period on the subsequent development of chickens were published. Numerous experiments conducted on different control groups showed that lowering the humidity to 32% from the 11th to the 18th day of incubation can increase the hatching of eggs by almost 6% and a further 4.3% decrease in the number of substandard chicks.
Proper incubation also requires regular turning of the eggs, but violation of this requirement is usually not the cause of the splits (the chick simply sticks to the film and cannot hatch).
Lack of feed
The weak legs in chickens can also be caused by the fact that the kids are simply undernourished. To eliminate such a problem, you must:
- feed the chicks every two hours in the first ten days;
- Every evening, check the zobiki in birds, and those chicks in which they are empty, additionally feed them;
- make sure that the feed fraction is rather rough: too soft food is laid in the goiter and is a frequent cause of chicken refusal from food, in addition, small and light food pulls a large amount of air into the stomach, which causes problems with the intestines and again promotes good appetite;
- provide chicks with enough water (without it, food simply cannot be processed and assimilated);
- use only high-quality food, necessarily containing proteins of animal origin;
- keep the chickens separate from the adult bird, otherwise stronger and more agile individuals simply will not give the kids a chance of survival.
Important! Often a bad appetite for a newly hatched chicken is due to the fact that the rest of the yolk remains in its stomach. Thus, nature has taken care that the bird can go without food for the first hours and even days.
Since starvation does not threaten chickens at home, such a feature can be a hindrance: birds refuse to eat and, consequently, do not gain weight well.
Some farmers advise using the following method to solve the problem. Chicks should be drunk with a weak solution of potassium permanganate (ordinary potassium permanganate), where to add sugar and vodka - 14 g (2 teaspoons) and 100 g (a little less than half a cup), respectively. Such a drug contributes to the rapid folding of the yolk and bowel emptying.
They say that the bird literally after an hour begins to actively peck and grows, as they say, by leaps and bounds.
Pay attention to the reasons for chipping chickens.
Content sharing
We have already mentioned this problem, but the joint keeping of chickens and adult chickens can lead not only to the fact that the chicks will not get enough feed. Chickens can catch various parasitic infections from their older brethren.
So, for example, coccidiosis, which often affects feathered stock, can occur in adult birds completely asymptomatic, but for chickens under the age of one and a half months, this disease is extremely dangerous.
In addition, older birds often injure chicks, and this is not necessarily done intentionally (although this happens, active chickens can peck the chick in the back and deform the weak skeleton). It is clear that a chicken, which adult relatives have pecked or trampled, is unlikely to be able not only to stand firmly on its feet, but also to stay alive.
Inbreeding
Inbreeding, or closely related interbreeding, is widely used in breeding, when mating of parents with children, brothers with sisters, and later animals with relatives in the second, third or fourth knee cannot be avoided to consolidate a new breed (common ancestors of more distant lines do not usually count inbreeding). And in nature, this phenomenon is not uncommon.
Did you know? Lion prides and wolf packs are usually formed from close relatives, but such an amazing creature as the ant Paratrechina longicornis (nicknamed because of the strange habit of darting to and from "crazy ant", "mad ant"), according to scientists, it has tremendous vitality precisely because of incest. It has been established that the sexually mature individuals of this insect do not look for a mate on the side, like other ants, but mate with each other, and only after that the fertilized females create a new nest nearby. Since during the so-called “flying of ants”, up to 80% of individuals usually die, closely related mating solved this problem and allowed insane ants not only to supplant their fellows, but also to demonstrate tremendous resistance to toxic chemicals (breeding in large numbers, these insects can afford small losses).And yet it is known that closely related crosses often lead to the birth of weak and sometimes non-viable offspring. In nature, such individuals perish, natural selection retains only the best, but with regard to the poultry, this scenario is unacceptable. For this reason, farmers are encouraged to avoid closely related crosses, leaving this prerogative to breeders.
Vietnamese fighting breed of chickens - an example of selective work
Treatment
To solve the problem of moving legs in chickens should be parallel in two directions: saving a bird that cannot walk, and taking steps to avoid the occurrence of similar problems in future livestock.
A common problem for chickens during the first days of life is diarrhea, learn how to treat it.
Priority measures
Having decided on the list of possible causes of weak legs in chickens, let us take steps to eliminate them. To do this:
- Change the flooring in the compartment or cover it with a flooring having a rough surface and sprinkle with sawdust or cover with straw (such litter should be replaced regularly).
- Ensure compliance with the temperature and optimum humidity during the incubation of eggs.
- Correct chickens ’dietary patterns and feed composition: add sprouted grains and raw mushrooms (for example, oyster mushrooms) to the diet to replenish calcium and vitamin D, this should strengthen the skeleton and improve the functioning of the musculoskeletal system.
- If necessary, help the "newborn" chick to digest the remains of the yolk, using traditional methods (potassium permanganate and vodka).
- Keep chicks separate from adult chickens until puberty (4-6 months).
- At the age of six weeks, divide chicks by sex and keep chickens and males separately to avoid closely related crossings.
Paw correction
No matter how strange it may sound, but the problem of twine (or, as it is also called, helicopter) in chickens can be solved mechanically, simply by connecting unstable legs together and not allowing them to disperse.
It is difficult to overestimate the role of summer walking in the growth and development of chickens, learn how to do it.For such an operation, you will need a strong non-slippery thread (nylon or wool works well) and an insulating tape or medical plaster. The algorithm of actions is extremely simple:
- Cut off a piece of electrical tape with a length of 4-5 cm.
- We dissolve the resulting strip in length into two parts.
- We tie two knots on a string at a distance of 3 cm from each other, cut the thread at the edges of the knots at a distance of 0.5 cm.
- We lay out the prepared strips of electrical tape parallel to each other on a flat surface, put the thread perpendicularly on them so that each knot is outside the outer edge of the "own" strip (the knots will subsequently fix the thread and prevent it from slipping). The result should be a figure in the shape of the letter "H" and a slightly overestimated transverse crossbar.
- Bend the edges of the tape, wrapping them with a thread.
- We catch the "gymnast" and, holding it with his left hand, with the right hand we gently wrap strips of electrical tape around each of its legs. The thread, which appeared as a result between the legs of the bird, will not allow them to part with each other, but will not interfere with normal movement.
Video: how to fix the splits in chicks
Important! Swine in chicks is evidence that the bird is weakened, so even in case of successful correction of such individuals it is not recommended to allow for breeding (especially if the problem of splits has arisen due to closely related crossbreeding), although they can be used for eggs and meat.“Stoned” chicks start making joyful steps immediately after the procedure. Constant movement along with the correction of food and conditions allow birds to quickly strengthen the muscles of the legs, usually in 3-4 days the "orthopedic apparatus" can be removed and, with a high degree of probability, the problem will be solved.
Driving legs in chickens - a phenomenon that occurs quite often, especially among novice poultry farmers. Do not panic. There are several possible causes of such a deviation, and all of them are quite easily eliminated. Moreover, by a painstaking, but generally quite primitive procedure, it is possible to restore a normal “walk” even to those kids who at first could not get up on their feet at all.
Spine correction in chicken
Reviews on the causes and ways to eliminate deviations
This is what I? Maybe you should not rush to drown everyone? Well, of course, if time is messing around.
