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21st April 2006, 04:21 PM
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Correction Of Extremely Splayed Legshttp://www.rims.net/Splay
Hi Kimberly, May I post those pics and narrative on Pigeon-Talk in the Resources section? Terry Terry and everyone, Thanks for all the nice thoughts. Please use these pics however you want, however, please make sure that everyone understands that this was a very complicated process that took over a month. The legs were gently pulled into place, but it was excruciatingly painful for the birds. They were on pain meds the whole time, and a certified avian vet did the taping. This was not a job for amateurs. You can cause permanent nerve and ligament damage if you do it the wrong way, and under no circumstances should it be done without significant amounts of pain medications 24 hours a day. Also, one of the chicks did not tolerate the stress of being bound and passed away about two days later. That was a horrible loss for me. The chicks look cute, but believe me, this was not fun for them, and to live like that for the first month of their lives was very traumatic. I am glad that in the end we had good results, and they are now happy and healthy chickens, but it was truly a labor of love. We believe that they were deformed because some genius decided that it was a good idea for the county elementary schools to all have incubators and one egg each. No one was instructed on how to care for the eggs or the chicks. We think this means that the eggs were not turned properly and did not have enough humidity to allow the chicks to move freely within the eggs. When the chicks hatched, they were removed from the incubators and tossed in a cardboard box in a heavily air conditioned room -- no food, heat, or water, which of course is death sentence. A friend of mine who happens to be a teacher found the first batch of four in a conference room and rushed them to my house, but they were dead before they got there. When she got back to school, she found the second batch and brought them over. They were nearly dead when I got them. The schools, of course, had absolutely no regard for these little chicks, and bought the line from the supplier that they would come back and get the hatched chicks and raise them on a beautiful farm (yeah, right, as compost, maybe). I was furious, to say the least, which is probably why I put so much into them and couldn't just let them die. Oh, yeah, and that soft spot in my head that goes all the way to my heart! LOL Anyway, hope this helps. Thanks, again, for all of the nice notes! Kimberly |
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