Having suffered with a splayed leg in one of my pullets in May last year, which was culled, I was extremely interested in the Perosis (slipped tendon) article on page 5 of the December 2007 issue of Feathered World.
This was not so much to do with poultry but my greater love of pigeons and the phenomenon of splayed leg syndrome in young pigeons in the nest. Throughout my 40 years' experience of breeding pigeons every now and again a youngster that appeared healthy when rung is unable to stand properly when weaned due to either one or both legs sticking out at right angles to its body, going in opposite directions, east and west. I have seen a few more where the youngster has one leg out to the side and been quite successful in correcting the disability.
I have to state at this point that whenever splayed leg has been spotted in the nest is has always been with a single reared youngster reaching approximately 14 days old and upwards. When ringing those babies no such problem existed, it was only in the next week when growing on occurred. The reason for the splayed leg I deduced was single rearing, although it was not in every case that a single reared youngster would develop the deformity.
Equally it was not always from the same pairs as a pair could successfully rear two youngsters in one nest and a single in the next with no problem. When a splayed leg was noticed, initially they were disposed of on the assumption that there was something amiss with the youngster and I had plenty of other birds and did not need to worry about an odd weakling. However, the next couple that appeared were treated in order to correct the outstretched leg.
First the legs were tied together similar to the way that horses were hobbled, in order to prevent them straying. In principle the idea being to hold the legs close to the body and allow proper calcification and development of the limb. To some degree it worked although care had to be taken as to what material was used to hobble the legs. On one occasion I used thin wire which resulted in the legs getting badly cut, and in a humane cull of the youngster.
Thick string was better with thin bandage material working best of all. Then I suddenly realised what was causing the malformed limb. Two youngsters in the nest bowl sit side by side and grow usually at the same rate to such an extent that they fill the bowl to the brim before weaning. The procedure which proved 100% successful on the two young birds that it was used on, was to cut a piece of wood 2" x 2" x 4" so that it sat comfortably beside the single baby, thus ensuring that the legs remained together as would be the case if the nest bowl contained two youngsters.
