Deformed leg? Need Advice

[mswhite01]

One of our day old chicks I noticed today was having trouble standing up, he would just kind of scoot hisself along. Upon closer inspection, one of his feet, instead of the toes pointing down, they are sticking out to the side. My husband said that he wont be able to make it, and he will have to get rid of him. But I asked him to wait a couple of days and maybe once his legs get longer, it may straighten out. Have any of you had this?

 

[BarkerChickens]

look up crooked toes in the search....and chick boot. There are previous threads tha show how to make little boots to straighten the toes. If you treat right away, you can probably fix it. Also, get some Poly-vi-Sol WITHOUT iron and give a couple drops to the chick each day. The vitamins may be able to help the chick as well.

If you are talking about the leg itself is sticking out to the side, it is splay leg. Look it up in the search in the threads as well. The easiest way I have treated it is to bring the legs together (as if the chick was standing, so there is a natural gap between the legs). Take a bandaid and cut it in half length wise. Using the band-aid strips, tape the legs straight, so when it stands the legs can't apart. There are threads with pics. It works though. I had a Java chick with bad splay leg and after a couple weeks of the band-aid strips, the chick could walk normal. Today, we haven't any idea which Java it was...they all walk normal.

 

[mswhite01]

Thanks so much, I will check it out, and actually I think that the leg is ok-just toe parts are sticking out sideways.

 

[emvickrey]

This can be fixed and usually don't take long. I have humidity problems in the cold weather and it causes this to happen. I've gotten pretty good at fixing it. What I do is I use the paper first aid tape and cut a couple pieces about an inch long and I turn the chick upside down and hold the leg i'm gonna fix the foot of with my fingers of the hand the chick is laying in. It's gona put up a fight so be patient. Spread its toes out to where they are suppose to be. The little toe is probably folded up under its foot. That toe is usually the whole problem. ONce you get them streached out to where they should be place one piece of tape on the bottom of the foot covering there the 3 lowest toes are to the ends of the toes. Make sure the toes are in the right position because like I said. It's gonna fight you and I usually have to attempt it several times before I get them right. Then put the other piece of tape on the top of the foot exactly where the bottom piece of tape is. Use your finger nails and make sure the tape gets stuck to itself between the toes to secure them in place Trim the tape so it still sticks to itself but isn't sticking out to far to trip the chick when it walks. It will take it a little bit to get used to it to walk but it will be fine. I give mine 3 small drops of Poly-vi-sol with out iron once a day until the toes are straight or straight enough to walk normally. I leave it on for 3 days. To take it off I use tweezers and again turn it upside down in my hand and carefully pull the tape off. Sometimes I have to trim it off as I pull it loose and sometimes I have to soak it. If they are cochin you will want to soak it of when you get to the outer toes where the feathers are. There will probably be poop to content with too. When you get if off let it walk a few minutes so you can see if it is walking right or not. If not, do it again and wait another 3 days or less. Depending if there was any improvement or not.

What I do if there wasn't improvement or it got worse I make it a hard sole boot. How I do that is I cut a small triangle out of sturdy paper that is slightly larger than the area the foot covers. I tape the foot as normal then I tape the sole to the bottom of it's foot over the tape. I secure it with a larger piece of tape that wrap around to the top of the foot. This keeps them from walking on the side of their foot and forces the foot flat. I would also keep the chick separate from any other chicks that want to peck at it. It will need a buddy at least.

I hope this helps.

I've only had 1 chick that it's toes didn't go back to normal and it walks fine it just has a smaller separation between 2 toes.