peafowl with deformed foot

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Silver pied

Silver pied

In the Brooder
Mar 22, 2016
15
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22
last season I had several birds hatch with feet that were curled under.
I want to avoid that this season if I can.
Is it an incubator heat or humidity problem or something else.
 
There are various opinions and theories about what causes it. What I have experienced is that sometimes a bird that has a prolonged hatching comes out of the shell with curled (sometimes even tightly curled) feet. Once the chick starts breathing air, its bones begin to harden. If the chick takes a long time getting out of the shell, the feet can start to harden before it gets out.

Most cases can be fixed with a combination of massaging the feet to gently stretch them and application of "chick shoes." It may take a couple of days working with the feet. I have had two chicks so far this year that I thought might need chick shoes, but in both cases the toes straightened on their own within a couple of hours. Search BYC for "chick shoes."

If the feet are not treated promptly, the bird may end up with permanently crippled or deformed feet. But prompt intervention fixes many cases just fine.
 
Thank you for the advice.
The chicks hatched by the peahens do not seem to have this problem.
 
Silver pied said:
last season I had several birds hatch with feet that were curled under.
I want to avoid that this season if I can.
Is it an incubator heat or humidity problem or something else.
Click to expand...

There are many reasons that can cause it. It can be do to nutrition such as lack of Vitamin B2. Another is too low humidity. Too low humidity can create difficulty hatching which can cause curly toes. There are other things but those are some things. Seeing though in later posts that the hen doesn't experience it chances are your humidity is too low.
 
Birdrain92 said:
There are many reasons that can cause it. It can be do to nutrition such as lack of Vitamin B2. Another is too low humidity. Too low humidity can create difficulty hatching which can cause curly toes. There are other things but those are some things. Seeing though in later posts that the hen doesn't experience it chances are your humidity is too low.
Click to expand...

Fine-tuning this a bit... humidity too low DURING HATCHING, which can prolong the chick's hatching or even prevent it altogether, and result in having to help the chick out of the shell. Those chicks are more likely to have foot problems at hatching due to the bones hardening. You can fix most of them, though, with prompt intervention to massage the foot and if necessary, apply chick shoes to the feet. Lots of ways to do chick shoes, find the one that works best for you.

Anything which prolongs hatching such as poor nutrition, bacterial contamination and incorrect incubator temps can cause it, as can interventions and shrink-wrapping. Timing of interventions is tricky. But I personally would rather deal with curled toes than dead chicks, other folks don't intervene at all. YMMV
 

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