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Guinea keet hatched out last night, has been unable to stand. Not spraddle legs as I understand it, it's like one side of his body is heavier/weaker than the other and he can only lie on his side. One leg looks to be working normally, and one not. He has not stood on his own and can only lie on one side.

Is there anything I can do to brace his legs (ie. can I brace them as for spraddle legs), or is the only solution to euthanise him?

Grateful for any advice, don't want to keep him alive and struggling if there's no solution, but on the other hand, where's there's life, there's hope.

MODS: I have also put this in the Guinea section, sincere apologies if I shouldn't have posted twice, and please delete the one that's in the wrong area, but I really need some very urgent help for this little fellow. I don't want him to suffer unduly.

Sounds like the keet was born with a deformity that I think you will not be able to resolve. One question is the keet eating? if not then you need to put it down I feel, sorry.

Thank you so much for your response.

I googled last night until I was cross-eyed and finally found a solution. At 2am this morning I made a very very narrow box, only just wide enough to fit the keet into so he was forced to stay upright. At 6am this morning - ta da! - standing keet! He's still a little bit wobbly on his feet, but has been growing in strength all day. Is now running around with his hatch mates, slightly erratically, but a massive improvement on last night. Eating and drinking, I think he's going to be just fine!

thats fantastic good on you for not giving up I probably would have but your determination has paid off. How he doing today?

Cinn, you can't tell him from his hatch mates apart from maybe being a tiny smidge smaller. He is zooming around the brooder like all the others, eating and drinking unaided.

I also forgot to mention - just in case anyone else has the same problem in the future - that when I put him in his little guinea crush box (I named it that 'cos it reminded me of a teeny tiny little miniature cattle crush), that I dissolved a little soft brown sugar in water and syringed that into him. Don't know if that made any difference in bringing his energy levels up, but whether it was the sugar, the box, or the combination of both, it worked super well.

All this incubation and hatching business is very new to me, he was only my fifth guinea hatched, ever, so I can't bear to lose any if I am able to help it. I have had two more hatch this morning with no problems, and three more currently working their way out of their shells.

The most difficult part of it all was trying to find a box tiny enough to work with - had to modify the sides even with the tiny box I started with!

Thats such a good ending so glad the chick recovered and all credit to you for not giving up

Thanks Clucks, seeing the little fella zooming around has made me really glad I didn't take the other route too hastily. And credit to the little guy as he didn't give up either!

I have had bantams with the same issue but never had a solution. By chance did you take a picture of the crush box in use?

I didn't even think about taking a photo, but here is the link I found the solution from (pic at very bottom of the page):

http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/problems/

I made a box much smaller than the one from that link, and made sure it was a very tight fit so there was no room for him to be able to roll over on his side. I had to be ever so gentle putting him in so that I didn't bend his little wings the wrong way, and getting him in so he was standing exactly and evenly upright took a couple of tries.

I covered the bottom of the box with turkey starter crumble in case he wanted to try eating and also to make sure he had something non-slippery underfoot. I also syringed him a bit of sugar water before putting him in the box. I then put the box in the hatcher (not the brooder, so to ensure he had a very constant heat source and so the box didn't get toppled by the keets already in the brooder)

He was in the box no more than five hours (overnight) and whilst he wasn't a hundred percent in the morning, when I took him out he stayed upright and was starting to move around. By that evening (i.e., not quite 24 hours after first putting him in the box) he was walking almost normally with only a few fall overs. The improvement was amazing quick.

It's what, three or four days later now and he is doing so well I'm not even completely sure which chick he is in the group!
So most certainly worth a try if you get any more chicks with this problem, I will certainly make sure I try this first before making the decision to cull if it happens again.

That's great news ash1. Well done for your persistence.