Backyard Poultry Forum

Hi,

Lilly has had a limp for about 3 days now. At first it was very slight but it was quite bad this morning. I thought she might have strained it as she is determined to squeeze herself into the bantams nesting house to lay her egg. I have checked her legs and feet for bumble foot and scaly leg and all seem ok. I soaked her in a warm Epsom salts bath this afternoon and gave her a tiny piece of aspirin to help with her discomfort. I thought I would check her skin to make sure she had good colour and condition. In doing so I was shocked to find that her preening gland is blocked and almost the size of a large marble and as tight as a drum, in fact I feel it would have burst if it was left another day or two. I quickly went into reading overdrive trying to work out what to do???
I know you should not do this but I applied betadine, sterilized a needle and put a little hole in it. I applied a warm compress and gentle massaged it and the most awful yellow pus/goo(not smelly) came out of it and there was heaps of it, some runny and some thickish. I continued the process until the bulge had done down considerably. I applied 3 in 1 antibiotic ointment to the whole area and I have started her on some antibiotics and will check the site every day. Her condition is fabulous, as too is her appetite and she is laying every couple of days. I would not have found the gland issue except for the fact that she has a limp and checked her over.
My question is.....can the blocked gland cause her to limp if it the infection and pressure is bad enough?? Can it "tunnel" down to her thigh joint??

Any advice would be great.

I don’t think that the gland issue would’ve caused the limp. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that would cause both those symptoms. Hopefully the limp is just a bit of an unrelated strain and will resolve itself. In my experience leg strains can take a couple of weeks to improve.

Let us know how she goes over the next week or so.

_________________
Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks

Thanks for the response Rach,

I took her to the vet a few days ago and she has a abscess on her preening duct. The vet lanced and flushed it and she has put her on an injection of antibiotics twice a day for 2 weeks (poor girl will feel like a pin cushion after I finish with her) and some oral pain killers. She thinks that the limp may be caused by the pressure that is on the spine as the two happened simultaneously but was not totally certain. She checked her legs and feet and stretched out her legs but could not find anything wrong but that's not to say that she hasn't possibly sprained herself some how. There is no improvement to the limp yet but I am bathing the abscess with warm water and gently squeezing out any pus build up (if any) and applying betadine everyday. It looks a lot better but is far from normal. She is still eating like a horse but not going very far from home with her limp. Hopefully it will get better for her soon.

This sounds really like me personally, well, ...... Sans the preening gland. If you have something sore somewhere, you might walk funny because you don't want to move the sore bit. It wouldn't be nice having an infection causing that kind of swelling. Pity she cannot tell you what's in her head, what she's thinking or feeling.........

If only she could......Poor Lil.

Still not a lot of change after a week but she is not getting worse. She is trying to venture out a bit further so I guess that's something. I cannot believe how good she is with the injections. she just sits there while I give them to her and it's not a small needle (19 gauge). She will be very glad (and so will I) when the injections cease. I'm still getting a small amount of pus out from the abscess but it does seem quite tender if you prod too much. I will bathe it once a day now to try and save her some discomfort. I still can't seem to get any oil from the gland itself so I am going to examine Freckles tonight to see how hers works.