Hi there~ We have had a total of 29 chicks in the past year, and out of them we have lost a total of 3 to something that seems similar. I am by no means an expert, but for our 3 (1 was last summer, 2 were in the last 2 weeks) it started by them acting kind of strange. They would mingle with the rest and then at times go off on their own. Then, we started noticing a "limp" of sorts, favoring one foot, and then the "limp" would become more prominent and lastly the toes would curl in. From everything that I have read/searched, it seems as though it is some sort of mineral deficiency. With the first one, he hung on for close to 2 months and at times we thought he was getting better and then other times not. We kept him protected from the others and fed him baby vitamins (I cant think of the name now, Poly vi-sol or something) in his water. We fed him tomatoes and spinach and pampered him. Once the heat of summer hit, it seemed to make his problems progress to where he couldnt possibly be happy and we put him down. He would also do some strange neurological stuff- turning his head, etc. He was a spring chick, so lived to be somewhere around 5 months and was a Partrige Cochin, rooster we believe.
A couple weeks ago, one of our roosters from last year, another Partrige Cochin, was acting odd, at times he would go off on his own and sit by himself. At times it woudl seem as if he were limping, but not prominent enough to be sure. Then, he did some weird neurological stuff with his head/neck and then he ran smack into the tree and our other rooster started pecking him, etc and I ran out and he was definately out of it so we put him down right then. We knew he was going downhill and didnt want him to suffer.
THEN, a few days ago one of our chicks (somewhere around 2 months old) started doing the same thing with the leg, and we brought it in and pampered it but after a few days he/she wasnt doing any better but seemed to be worsening and rather than prolongate like we did with the 1st one we put it down.
Anyhow, that is our stories, and like I said, I did TONS of research and everything was pointing to a mineral deficiency of sorts. I dont know if this sounds anything like what you have going on. Best of luck!
