Club feet on a 12 week old

[IndigoJaguar]

Have any of you ever had this? The toes are all curled in and the feet are turned inward. She still walks but I am doubtful she can scratch. Do you all think I will need to put her down?

 

[IndigoJaguar]

Wow. I had better keep this chicken. Since no one commented, I guess no one has ever had this happen. She must be really rare! I could sell her to a circus for a lot of money then.

 

[Terri O]

HA! You are funny

...I guess everyone was afraid to tell you what to do...you can actually make little shoes to stick to the bottom of it's feet to straighten out the toes. It is tricky and putsy to do ut it does work if you want to try!
Also you could try holding the chick with it's feet in the correct position when you are watching TV at night...an individual on my state thread swears by this method for imbalance and twisted neck...worth a try--if you can sit still that long!
Good luck! Terri O

 

[IndigoJaguar]

Thanks!

I wonder if anyone on here has tried all that and still had to do away with the chicken because they found it couldn't survive. That's what I'm worried about. I don't really want to put a bunch of time and feed into a chicken that isn't going to be able to survive anyway.

 

[Katy]

Is this something that just developed? At 12 weeks I doubt that making the little "boots" to correct foot issues some use on day olds would work. Mareks causes foot and leg issues among other things.

 

[IndigoJaguar]

I don't know if it just developed or not. I just got them from a feed store that has had them all this time. I do know they were just in water bins with just enough room to stand. Maybe not the best conditions?

 

[IndigoJaguar]

They seemed really healthy and shiny, but the are doing a lot of feather picking and one of them died yesterday...not sure if they killed her or she died and then they pecked her, but they are pecking open places on each other.

 

[Katy]

Sounds like they've been too closely confined. They'll peck and kill each other. Once they start it's next to impossible to break them of it without seperating them.

 

[Uniontown Poultry]

You can always try to straighten out their feet with chick shoes, but since they are bigger, they will have to wear them longer, and they will damage the chick shoes more in their use, so you'll be replacing them a lot. If you can just straighten out their toes, bind them to a popsicle stick with athletic tape, or make little wedge-shaped cardboard shoes (be careful b/c the underside might be very slick - you may want to put something on the underside with some grip, like drawer liner) and tape their toes to that. If they absolutely cannot manage to get around with toes taped in the proper position, you may need to make a big chick chair (basically a little hammock for them to hang in), and put them in it so their feet just touch the ground & they can stand if they really want to, wearing their chick shoes, but it lets them rest. I highly recommend pinning a piece of fabric over them in the chair so they can't escape. Make the chair with food & water readily accessible. Your chick may need a friend in the box/cage with him, and the friend will eat the food & spill the water & jump on top of the chick chair, but it is preferable to hearing your "patient" make lonely peeps. The good news is that once you can get them to use their toes properly, you're home free. And once they start using their toes (i.e. putting weight on them) the connective tissue and little foot muscles start to grow & be like they are supposed to be. It's much easier on little peepers, but anything shy of 20 weeks is worth a try. For the picking, I recommend blu-kote or powdered sulfur. As long as the thing causing the picking is remedied (such as overcrowding), they heal pretty well. A breeder I know puts things in the chick cage for them to focus on when picking is an issue - styrofoam, which they pick apart, or apples. Uncle Jimmy's makes an anti-pick block called a "Pecker Recker" just for this purpose. Hope this helps.

 

[IndigoJaguar]

I will see what I think. Sounds like a lot of work for just one chicken that I am not attatched to.

Some of my other babies I would do anything for but these are the new guys. Thank you tho, Uniontown!
I think we are getting better on the pecking issue. The feed place was giving them broiler feed and I switched them to layer, which is less protein. On top of that, they didn't really eat for the first three days...didn't drink either. Another key factor I didn't think about until later was that they were in separate bins; six in one, four in the other...so when I combined them, they didn't know each other. They were in bins next to each other, but not in the same ones. I stopped confining them to the house, let them out in the run, sprayed blukote on all pecked spots, got some high protein feed, and have been giving them treats with protein in. We will see if that does it.