An issue with my chicken's feet

charlidarlin

Hatching
6 Years
Jul 15, 2013
4
0
7
Hi All-I have an issue with 3 of my pullets on their feet. It is immediately on the ends of their toes. It is a darkened area of I guess dead skin and it looks as if the nails are gone. It seemed to appear overnight. One of them was noticeably limping and holding it's foot up. I initially thought it was bumblefoot but there is no "core" so to speak. It literally looks like something has eaten the nails away and diseased the skin. We have been wrapping their feet and putting Neosporin on them but it's not looking any better. I wanted to see if anybody had any ideas. I could just cry for these poor babies, they are so sweet and I don't know what to do for them.
 
Oh, wow! We are experiencing a similar issue...in the last four weeks three of our hens (they're almost a year old) have had their toenails ripped off. The first one we noticed was limping and we discovered one toenail hanging by a thread and another toe bent crooked, as if it were broken? We cut off the hanging toenail and clened her foot and wrapped it, which she left on for two days, when we removed it.
The next hen I found in the AM covered in blood! Turned out she was missing a toenail and the toe had apparantly bled and she wiped it on her face, chest and stomach. We washed her well and didn't even cover the toe, as it appeared to be scabbed over. She had been fine when put to "bed" and was locked in the coop all night, so we felt certain that this was happening from something in the coop.
The third hen was also found favoring one foot--upon closer inspection, she was completely missing a toenail! All three hens seem to have made a full recovery. We switched their roosting log (4" diameter) to the flat side of a 2x4, thinking maybe they had hooked their toenails in the crack that was running the length of the log.
Will the toenails grow back? Is it not an injury, but maybe some sort of illness that we might have in common with charlidarlin's flock?
 
I think I've read some places that rodents sometimes like to nibble at their toes when they're sleeping. Maybe research possibility this a bit?
 
If you have a game camera and can set it up in the coop, you may be able to discover what is happening. Good luck!
 
Thanks everyone for your input. I am just baffled by this. I have never seen anything like this before. We will keep doctoring them and hopefully I can figure out what has happened.
 

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