Banty chick with broken/deformed toe. (pics)

[fishermum]

Hello all,
I have a banty chick that has an outside toe (the really feathered one) that is folded under his/her foot. S/he is really starting to limp now, so I think it may be causing some pain (?)

Is there anything I can do about this? Can the toe be removed, or is this just going to cause him/her to be lame for life?

Here's a few pics I took:

Any help would be much appreciated as I am relatively new to chickens! Thanks.

ETA: I also noticed that the wing on the injured leg side (right) is hanging lower than her left one...

 

[realmofthewoodsranch]

I wouldn't remove the toe, that increases the risk for infection. You can try splinting the toe... Move it back to it's natural position, put a spacer (makeup sponge?) between the toe and the one next to it and then tape the toes together. Make sure you cover the feathers with a baby sock or nylons or something to keep the tape from ticking to the feathers horribly. Or, you can try a chick boot. To make a chick boot, have to chick stand on an old credit card or some other similar rigidity plastic. trace around the foot, but not each individual toe, just a circle around the whole foot. Then, cut out the circle. Once you're done, then comes the tricky part... You have to make the chick stand on the circle, fix his toe, and then tape the ENTIRE foot to the circle in the most natural position you can make it in. Maybe it might be easier to not cut the card first? i don't know.. I'd be afraid of cutting off toes on accident... EEP!
ETA: maybe trim the feathers on the afflicted toe to make life easier for you... but make sure it's not a blood feather!!! If you accidentally cut a blood feather, get a pair of needle nose pliers, hold the area firmly and yank the whole feather out. If you don't, your bird can bleed to death. It can't stop bleeding because of the feather shaft. It will be hard and uncomfortable for the bird to pull out a living feather, but you're both better off in the long run to do so. Blood feathers have a clear shell with a feather in it coming in, they're the feathers that are growing, not ones that have stopped and shed that shell.

 

[eggsrcool]

This is called curly toe ( i think)
Most people would cull these birds, but it is possible to correct. Take a length of stick tape make a loop with the sticky side upwards and turn the ends under to stick on the table: place the chicks foot on the sticky tape with the toenails sticking out but the toes in the spread position. With another length of tape make a sandwich of the toes and press the tape round them to hold them in place, and then trim with scissors. Cut off the original bits which were secured to the table. Leave the tape on for a week then remove it and clean up the toes and feet.

 

[miabean]

My Silkie has the same problem, I was coming here to post this same question, thanks!

 

[fishermum]

Thank you so much!

I was actually considering culling the poor bird, but put a splint on the bird's foot as described (it did not like that very much, lol!). As soon as I put the splint on and put the chick down s/he started walking a lot better than s/he was before. I think the claw on the curled in toe was digging into the foot causing some pain before, hence the bad limp.

The toe had been curled under for some time, so it wasn't really easy to straighten it out, but I did the best I could considering I had nobody around to help.

I think I'll leave it for several days then take a look...I'll update then!