Chicken PT

 

  • We had the idea to treat Britters like a human and give her Physical Therapy (PT).

  • PT Box #1 - At first we noticed she was lonely. We put her in a open shoe box with pine chips and brought her to watch baseball with us at our great room bar. She couldn’t fly or run/jump so all that was needed was for one of us to always be in arms reach to stop her if she tried to launch. She got used to the kitchen noises and doesn’t spook at blenders, food processors or the kitchenaid mixer anymore. 

  • Her wing healed first. She started flapping her wings and scissoring her legs up and down. 

  • PT Box #2 - We decided to try another PT with her. We took an amazon box and put a rectangular hole in the bottom. Flipped the box over and lowered her legs through the hole. This allowed her to sit on the box and her legs to dangle, stretching slowly using gravity. 

  • Bicycle PT - One of us had the idea that we should “bicycle” her legs and see if we can slowly regain her range of motion to bend her legs. This was too painful initially so we made sure to listen to her. She slowly was able to bicycle/bend her legs a little more every week. 

  • Feet Crunches PT - We noticed her feet seemed to have good blood flow and were the normal color but she was keeping them scrunched up in fists. We decided to start opening and closing her feet/toes in order to make sure her feet/toes didn’t freeze in position. This really seemed to help. This is another place where we saw positive impact from the warm baths. 

  • PT Shoe - One of her feet healed before the other. The right foot was still in a fist. We decided to make her a shoe out of cardboard and open her foot to keep it in an open position. We left this on her all night. In the morning her foot really seemed to have opened up. She only used the shoe for about 48 hours before she didn’t need it anymore. 

          





                                 

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