Okay, this kid has thrown me a curve ball. This is an EE chick from our own flock, hatched yesterday after a prolonged incubation (hatched on day 25) in an incubator that isn't working very well. Halfway through zipping, it stopped. Twelve hours later, it was alive and peeping, but stuck. I took the top off the egg to find a perky, alert chick with nearly dry down who just didn't seem interested in pushing out of the egg. I put it in the incubator to dry off, and noticed that it was even clumsier than usual for a newborn. That evening, I realized that part of the problem is that it's standing nearly upright:
It looks like a doggone penguin, or a runner duck. When it walks, it's a bizarre little Charlie Chaplin shuffle. There are significant contractures of the muscles running up the backs of the thighs. It gets around OK, is eating and drinking, but I am at a loss as to what caused this. There are several possible factors that I can think of: too low an incubation temperature leading to delayed development, too long in the shell post-pip, congenital (can't rule that one out), nutritional (it's the only one affected though). What else? Has anybody else had a chick like this? Does anybody have a name for this condition, or a cause? I am scratching my head.
Of course I'm going to give it a try with this kid. We're doing physical therapy several times a day. No, really.
It looks like a doggone penguin, or a runner duck. When it walks, it's a bizarre little Charlie Chaplin shuffle. There are significant contractures of the muscles running up the backs of the thighs. It gets around OK, is eating and drinking, but I am at a loss as to what caused this. There are several possible factors that I can think of: too low an incubation temperature leading to delayed development, too long in the shell post-pip, congenital (can't rule that one out), nutritional (it's the only one affected though). What else? Has anybody else had a chick like this? Does anybody have a name for this condition, or a cause? I am scratching my head.
Of course I'm going to give it a try with this kid. We're doing physical therapy several times a day. No, really.
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