Genetically twisted toe: breed or not???

77horses

◊The Spontaneous Pullet!◊
15 Years
Aug 19, 2008
7,635
693
536
Maine
I was wondering about this...One of our Red Star hens, Abby, has one twisted toe. I thought it was broken and had healed like that or something, but when I incubated a batch of eggs, and some didn't make it due to temp. and humidity issues, one of the eggs was from her because one of the eggs that didn't make it had a half developed chick in it with a twisted toe. So I knew it was from her, and it must be genetic.
So I was wondering, is it OK to hatch some of her eggs, or would that raise the risk for her chicks to have more serious problems, like a deformity or something? I think it would be fine, except for the twisted toe. But I'm not showing them or anything, so looks really don't matter. I think it would be kinda interesting to have a line of chickens from her who all have the same twisted toe.
roll.png

Thanks!
 
If she has passed on some twisted toed offsprings, you can bet you will get more twisted toed offspring that you do not want to breed on except for meat purposes or egg laying, period. I would not use her at all except for egg laying.
 
Quote:
If you have temp and humidity issues in your incubator, this can cause twisted toes. How do you know for sure it is genetic?????

ETA: Always make sure your birds are on a good vitamin supplement before hatching eggs and try to get your incubator issues resolved before hatching.

I hatched hundreds of chicks this year and had none with twisted toes. I did, however get some chicks from another breeder and one of the cockerels had a twisted toe.
 
Last edited:
pips&peeps :

Quote:
If you have temp and humidity issues in your incubator, this can cause twisted toes. How do you know for sure it is genetic?????

ETA: Always make sure your birds are on a good vitamin supplement before hatching eggs and try to get your incubator issues resolved before hatching.

I hatched hundreds of chicks this year and had none with twisted toes. I did, however get some chicks from another breeder and one of the cockerels had a twisted toe.

I heard that hum./temp. issues will cause the chick's toes to be twisted, but the unhatched chick that I found had ONE twisted toe, and it was the same one as the hen's. None of the other toes were twisted.​
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom