Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (47 page)

Since flies spread bacteria on their feet, keep your recovering patient where flies can’t get to the wound. During the chicken’s recovery, isolate it from other chickens and provide adequate feed and fresh water. A recovering chicken that is
disinclined to eat may be encouraged by frequent feeding or stirring of the feed and might be tempted with a variety of the treats it likes best. Vinegar added to the water at the rate of one tablespoon per gallon (15 mL per 4 L) will make the water more appealing to the chicken and encourage it to drink.

A chicken can break a leg or toe bone by getting its leg trapped or wedged somewhere and struggling to get out, by jumping onto a hard surface from too great a height, or by being stepped on by a horse. The first thing to do is make sure the leg is really broken. If you did not see the action that caused it, consider that a broken bone may not be the problem. Some diseases cause paralysis and lameness. Among fast-growing broilers, lameness is typically a nutritional issue.

Broken toe.
A suddenly crooked toe is easily recognized and probably broken, but treating a broken toe is not so easy. Without treatment it may mend on its own but will remain crooked. If you decide to apply a splint, the chicken will pick persistently at the splint and eventually tear it lose.

Fashioning a comfortable splint is also problematic; one option is to use a pipe cleaner, available from a craft or hobby store, bent into the shape of the chicken’s foot. Cushion the toes with strips of Vetrap or gauze, place the splint at the bottom of the foot, wrap a little more Vetrap or gauze around the toes, and fasten the cast with first-aid tape. Take care not to make the cast so tight or thick the bird can’t walk properly; apply just enough wrap to cushion and protect the foot.

Broken leg or foot.
A leg or foot that is twisted out of its normal position is a pretty sure sign of a broken bone. Don’t try to set the bone, however, as setting it could worsen the injury. Sometimes the best thing to do is let the leg or foot mend on its own. It may grow crooked, but in most cases the bird will get along just fine, although it won’t win any prizes at a show.

If the chicken can stand and walk and a splint seems necessary, sometimes just encasing the broken leg with a soft cast made of Vetrap will sufficiently do the trick. Start at the top and work downward, wrapping the leg until you get to the foot. If the break is near the bottom of the leg and no foot bone is broken, cut the ends of the Vetrap and wrap them between the toes to anchor the cast in place.

If a sturdier cast is necessary, add an outer layer of stiff paper or cardboard to create a tube around the leg, and anchor it with first-aid tape. A short piece of irrigation hose also makes a dandy cast. Slit one side, carefully slip it over the wrapped leg, and tape it in place.

A serious leg break may benefit from splinting. A stiff splint must be applied with care, and checked often, to make sure it doesn’t slip and press against the chicken’s thigh or foot. You also have to be careful not to wrap a leg so tightly that the wrap cuts off circulation to the foot.

Begin by wrapping the leg with gauze or Vetrap to create a cushion. Then apply splints cut to a length suitable for the bird’s size — not so long they poke into flesh. Splints may be made of Popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, tongue depressors, or anything similar. Apply two, to opposite sides of the leg, and anchor them in place with first-aid tape or Vetrap. For a chicken that persists in picking at and removing the wrap, shipping tape, such as Scotch 3M, will usually work. When checking the dressing, don’t try to pull the shipping tape loose; instead, cut it with scissors to avoid reinjuring the bird’s leg.

If the leg persists in twisting despite the cast, you may be able to get it to grow straight by keeping weight off the leg while it mends. Fashion a sling or hammock by nailing together a wooden frame and securely stapling soft netting to the top with two holes for the chicken’s legs to go through. When the chicken rests in the sling, the leg holes should not bind and the feet should not touch the ground. Provide feed and water within easy reach. After the bone mends, the chicken’s legs will be stiff until it exercises its muscles enough to walk properly.

Depending on the severity of the break, the chicken should be able to get around without a splint after about 2 weeks. While the leg is in the process of mending, change the cast or splint often to make sure nothing has gone wrong. Watch especially for swelling, infection, and broken skin that signal the need for an antibiotic treatment.

While the leg is mending, keep the bird isolated and make sure it has proper feed and fresh water. If the hospital cage has a perch, remove the perch so the chicken isn’t tempted to reinjure its leg jumping down from the perch. If the bird appears in shock — the skin turns pale, the pulse is rapid but weak, breathing is rapid, and the bird becomes weak or prostrate — keep it in a quiet place and provide the warmth of a low-watt lightbulb at one side of the hospital cage.

Treating a broken leg requires lots of time and patience, and you can’t always be sure of the outcome. One of my neighbors splinted a rooster’s leg after the bird had been mauled by her dog. Despite the finest nursing a broken-legged chicken could hope for, the cock eventually lost his leg. Even so, he got around amazingly well hopping on one leg, but he was no longer able to breed.

The most likely bones to be broken in a chicken are in the legs and feet.

A broken toe may be splinted with a pipe cleaner bent in the shape of the chicken’s foot.

A sling keeps weight off the broken leg to prevent twisting while it mends.

EACH FEMALE CHICK
starts life carrying the beginnings of thousands of undeveloped yolks inside her body, not all of which develop into eggs. Ever since chickens were first domesticated, poultry keepers have worked to coax the greatest number of eggs from their hens through selective breeding, improved nutrition, and optimal layer management. Even so, a hen rarely lays more than a small percentage of the total number of eggs she started out with. By keeping your hens healthy and happy, you will be rewarded with the maximum number of eggs they are capable of laying.

A pullet starts life with two ovaries, but as she grows, the right ovary remains undeveloped and only the left one becomes fully functional. The functioning ovary contains all the undeveloped yolks the pullet was born with. If you ever have occasion to examine a hen’s innards, you’ll find them in a cluster along her backbone, approximately halfway between her neck and tail. Depending on the age of the hen and her stage of lay, the yolks range from head-of-a-pin size to nearly full-size. In a pullet or nonlayer, they are all small because none are developing in preparation for laying the next egg.

When a pullet reaches laying age, one by one the yolks mature, so at any given time her body contains yolks at various stages of development. Approximately every 25 hours, one yolk is mature enough to be released into the funnel of the oviduct, a process called
ovulation
. Ovulation usually occurs within an hour after the previous egg was laid. During the yolk’s journey through the oviduct, it is
fertilized (if sperm are present), encased in various layers of egg white, wrapped in protective membranes, sealed within a shell, and finally enveloped in a fast-drying fluid coating called the bloom, or cuticle.

An egg takes about 25 hours to develop in the oviduct, the average length of which is 25 inches (63.5 cm).

Throughout its passage through the oviduct, the egg leads with its pointed end. Just before it is laid, the egg rotates so the blunt end comes out first. The whole process takes about 25 hours, causing a hen to lay her egg about an hour later each day. Since a hen’s reproductive system slows down during the night, eventually she’ll skip a day altogether and start a new multiple-day laying cycle the following morning.

The group of eggs laid within one
laying cycle
(which may vary in length from 12 days to nearly a year) is called a
clutch
. Some hens take more time than normal (say, 26 hours) between eggs and therefore lay fewer eggs per clutch than a hen that lays every 25 hours. Conversely, some hens lay closer to every 24 hours and so lay more eggs per clutch. Many production hens are bred to have the shortest possible interval between eggs and therefore lay as many eggs as possible per clutch.

The best heavy-breed hens in peak production lay about 40 eggs in a clutch; a Leghorn lays closer to 80. In 1979 a strain of superior Leghorns developed at the University of Missouri averaged more than one egg per day per hen. One of the hens laid 371 eggs in 364 days, and another laid an egg a day for 448 days without a break.