Deformed toes

[Jenjens]

Good morning,

My hen has always had these toes that curve outwards. I never thought much about it, but they seem to be getting worse and am wondering if anyone has seen this before? Is this just a birth defect? Do you think it hurts? They also look swolen, but we have inspected them, and other than curving and being swolen, her toes and feet look healthy. Should I do anything or just leave them be? It is only her two middle toes.

We did poke a hole in there to see if there was anything, like pus or an infection in there, and only blood came out.

She is 1.5 years old of that makes a difference.

Thank you!

 

[ackie]

My first thought is that the swollen bit is just callused from the atypical weight distribution from the curved toes.

 

[coach723]

Do the lumps/swollen parts feel soft or hard? The left foot (the chickens left-on the right in the picture) to me looks like it may have been broken at some point and it could be bone callus. That happens when the bone is healing itself. There are lots of little bones and joints in the toes, and injury is not uncommon. When a break heals aligned well the callus may disappear after some time, when a break is not aligned well then a lump may be present always afterwards. If she's getting around ok and it doesn't seem to be bothering her, then it's probably not a big worry. An image below of a chicken femur with a bone callus from a break that did no heal aligned well. This link has some pictures of a live chicken with a bone callus visible from a leg break, scroll down for those:
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/2014/02/BrokenLeg.html

 

[Jenjens]

The swollen part is mushy/soft. If she broke a bone, wouldn't she would have not been walking on it though? I have had her since she was a baby and never noticed any limping other than maybe 3 months ago. She seems to walk slower than everyone else, but doesn't look to be in pain.

 

[Jenjens]

Oh and thanks for the article. I could have stepped on her toes at some point.

 

[coach723]

Birds break toes and do not always obviously limp. They are quite stoic and hide illness and injury well. I had a roo break a toe badly, it was turned completely under his foot, he was running around like he was unaware. I'm sure he was not. If they are soft, then maybe something else. What do the bottoms of her feet/toes look like?
Still, if it's not bothering her, I would just watch.

 

[Jenjens]

Her feet look good.