help, ailing chicken

[kg acres]

My hen's legs are hard. You can't bend her toes and it goes into her legs. The toes are reddish at the tips. She has lost weight, but she has an appetite and is eating and drinking, I just think it's difficult for her to get to the food sometimes. She is walking on the base of her feet (not her toes), but when I touch her toes, she screams. She's alert and her eyes are bright. I live in Wisconsin, and it has been cold, but she has stayed in the coop which has thick bedding. It doesn't look like frost bite, especially since the color of her legs are normal, but the leg is stiff. If anyone has any idea what this is and how to cure it, I'd love to know. We have 22 other chickens and none seem to be affected. FYI-when the weather is decent, they are free range and she was looking a little sickly before we got the cold weather. Thank you.

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. Could you get some good pictures of her legs? There are some diseases that can cause swelling in the legs, and one particular one that causes them to be hard. That one is called osteopetrosis, or marble bone disease. Vitamin deficiency, gout, viral arthritis, and mycoplasma synoviae are some other disorders to rule out. Here is a link about osteopetrosis:
http://www.avitechnutrition.com/pdf/technical-bulletin/2009/Leg Weakness Disorders in Poultry.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=IL...v=onepage&q=osteopetrosis in chickens&f=false

Osteopetrosis or marble bone disease