Culled 4, one deformed

[crooked stripe]

I have raising chickens for 3-4 years now and the last year have had 4 problems. One Maran went blind in one eye and her tail started growing sideways. She moped around a couple weeks then got so bad seeing I had to put her down. The other 3 seemed to have broken their foot-leg somehow. I have searched over coop designs and mine seems to be built as all the others. I am thinking they broke their legs from jumping or twisting them some how. All happened at different times and all just under 1 yr old. I was wandering if some breeds are weaker than others. Oh, the other 3 where wyandots if that makes any difference. I just keep them for amusement and eggs. Now down to 7, one great and friendly sex-linked roo and 6 Golden Comets. My best luck have been with buff orps and black australorps witch I have 6 BO day olds in the brooder. Anyone have an idea of what might be causing this? I assume this has been accidents not sicknesses. rj

 

[aveca]

It sounds a little like a mereks disease , milder form, they act like broken leg but it is a form of paralasis , the white film on the eye is a classic symptom of mereks..
certian breeds have a B factor in thier blood and have an inherant immunity to mereks, leghorns , orpingtons, mediterantian breeds show immunity and B factor probably because of sumara? ancestry.. breeds that are highly suseptable are dominiques, sebrights and a host of others..Im not sure of the complete list, it was a while ago we posted it..

not really sure but that is what it sounds like..wild birds can carry it from one farm to another in thier dander and droppings..we lost an entire flock of dominiques to it, but the sex links didnt seem to be bothered or the australorps, one EE cross got a mild form of it and had paralized foot but recovered..

If you want to keep suseptible breeds the best answer is vaccination ..we keep a few sebrights and vaccinated them.you can do it yourself with chicks.