4 week old all of a sudden has issues walking.

[TripMomma]

Yes, I started out thinking it could be a bad cocci load....but now I'm pretty sure she is injured.

 

[chooks4life]

Yes, I started out thinking it could be a bad cocci load....but now I'm pretty sure she is injured.

Injury looks likely, something has definitely happened to her knees, but what caused the injury is possibly not an external force, but rather an internal breakdown for whatever reason, because to have both legs injured in multiple directions like that is extremely unusual.

The accident would need to have forcibly bent both of the chick's legs in the three directions they don't naturally bend in. What kind of possible accident could cause that?!

It's not 'spraddling' according to any of the usual definitions... Originally I thought your chick might have genetic spraddling caused by misaligned leg structure; I've had that in my flock before. Having seen the video, nope, it's definitely not that.

I've never had deficiency caused spraddling but that's common enough too and I've seen that in other peoples' chicks... But it doesn't look like what your chook has, at all. That said there is some room for possibility there, but it's far from a typical case if so.

I have seen somewhat similar cases caused by injury, but nothing at all like the multi-directional range of damage your chick is showing.

Some drugs have the odd side effect of causing tendons to snap or severely weaken, though, in particular some antibiotics carry that potential risk; this could possibly be an individual and unusual response to the drugs she was given.

I know a woman whose achilles tendons both snapped at different times without due cause, while under no strain, simply due to antibiotics she took, and have read a few articles on that lately too... Before that I would have been dubious about the idea of antibiotics causing tendons to snap. Sounds far-fetched!

It's not a common side effect but it's now known to occur to some. Haven't heard of this happening to chickens due to antibiotics, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

For future reference for anyone who has something similar in their chicks, in the off-chance that a solution, cause, or treatment is found, I'll provide the link to your other thread:
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Best wishes.