What causes leg edema in young ostriches? What you need to know about farming ostriches

Due to their physiological structure, ostriches have two toes; the inner toe mainly bears the weight, while the outer toe helps maintain balance. The legs support the entire body through the hock joint, and there is no muscle tissue around the hock joint, so dislocations and joint swelling are prone to occur in the early stage. For dislocations, surgical manual reduction and bandaging fixation are often used to help them recover. For joint swelling, cold compresses or local block therapy are applied first, followed by bandaging and fixation, all of which can achieve good results. It may also be caused by an imbalance or deficiency of nutrients, which often leads to leg disease. These factors include:

Calcium-phosphorus imbalance Calcium and phosphorus are the main components of bone tissue. During the brooding period, ostriches grow bones rapidly and need to take in sufficient calcium and phosphorus from the feed. An imbalanced calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in the feed will affect the absorption of both, and further affect bone calcification. Long-term feeding of this kind of feed will aggravate bone deformation, manifesting as bent long bones, weakness in standing, and even paralysis. In production, people often mistakenly believe that an ostrich's two legs are too thin to support its huge body, and therefore add excessive calcium to the diet (such as using excessive limestone powder, shell-based feed, and calcium-rich forage, etc.), resulting in an imbalanced calcium-to-phosphorus ratio. In addition, excessive calcium also affects the absorption of zinc and manganese, which also affect bone formation and cause joint swelling and slipped leg syndrome. Experiments have shown that during the chick stage, a feed calcium content of 1.2%-1.5% and a phosphorus content of 0.6%-0.7% is already sufficient. Appropriate amounts of easily absorbed zinc and manganese can also be supplemented in chick feed. Improper supply of protein and energy levels Due to people's expectations for rapid ostrich growth and lack of knowledge about the protein and energy requirements of ostriches at different growth stages, some people blindly feed young birds “high-grade” concentrated feed, causing the young birds to grow too quickly, while muscle and bone development cannot keep pace, leading to bone deformation, unstable standing, and even paralysis. Vitamin deficiency Young birds being unable to stand and becoming paralyzed can also be caused by vitamin deficiency. It manifests as muscle malnutrition and even weak contraction, lying down for a long time, which then aggravates the degeneration of muscles, especially skeletal muscle. Early intramuscular injection of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and selenium has significant therapeutic effects. Vitamin D directly participates in bone ossification, and its deficiency hinders calcium and phosphorus deposition in the bone. Vitamin B2 deficiency leads to curled toe bones. Therefore, supplementation of vitamin D and vitamin B2 is very important in actual production. However, vitamins are easily destroyed, so attention must be paid to the storage time and conditions of the feed, and fresh feed should be used as much as possible.