2 Questions: Foot Problems & Small Chick

[NoSkiveez]

I recently got a handful of baby chicks and about 10 days after I got them I noticed that one of them was looking wobbly on her feet. She was walking a bit funny and I noticed her toes were bent off to the sides on both feet. Not all the toes, just the long one in the front on both feet. They pointed outward. Sometimes it would walk funny, sometimes it wouldnt. My husband had talked to the people we had gotten them from and they mentioned that the chicks parents were closely related. My question is, how closely related would they need to be for something like this to occur? And if I wanted to reproduce chicks from these hens at a later time, if I had a completely unrelated roo would this be a future concern or should I also just start out with new hens and leave these to being hens that just lay eggs?

One of the chicks also never grew. It was very close to the same size it was when I got them at a day old. She ate just fine and drank water too. It didnt seem to have anything else going on with it. Then she died. When I noticed her dead, I promptly removed her from the crate and took all the chicks out and cleaned and disinfected the crate because I wasnt sure exactly what cause this. I hope its not too graphic to say that she was flat as a pancake and didnt appear to have anything else wrong, no injuried no peck marks, nothing. Is there something that may have caused her to not grow? Either on my part or for another reason? I would really like to avoid loosing another chick in the future.

Thanks in Advance!

 

[LilBizzy]

Hello, and welcome to BYC!!!
For your first chick- the one with the toes- I doubt that is from breeding. I had read that problems don't start in breeding until you are on the 3rd or 4th generation. The toe problem could have been something that happened at hatch, or shortly after hatch. On this forum, I have see many chicks with curled toes, or splayed legs. Some of those problems could be from a vitamin deficiancy. I wouldn't use her for breeding, just in case it it is something else.

The other chick who didn't grow- I have seen that before. It certainly isn't something you are doing or have done. I think it is quite rare, but they are almost like dwarfs. Iv'e never seen an explanation, but whatever caused her size is most likely what caused her death- just some sort of defect.

 

[Horsefly]

We hatched a batch of chicks in a incubator our first time and a bunch of them had deformed feet and there were a couple runts. We later found out that the themometor was broke and the temp had been really high all through incubation. I belive this created problems for the chicks. If the eggs were kept too warm it could of caused your trouble.

 

[NoSkiveez]

Quote:
They way they made it seem is that it is possible that these chicks were very inbred. We decided that we'll just let those hens be layers. Regardless of the cause, they are still a pleasure to have around.

Im glad to hear that it wasnt likely something I did wrong to cause the little chick to die.