Incubated chick hatched with deformed leg joints.

[rascal66]

This is my 3rd time around incubating eggs from my own flock, and it has been so rewarding! I had 14 happy and healthy chicks hatch.

But with this batch being mostly successful for me, I still ran into some heart ache.

I had one chick hatch, my 15th chick, unable to stand or walk, and after some research I came to the conclusion that culling would be the best option.

I recognized the look as well, since my first incubation I had a one chick with the same problem. I thought at first it was a splayed leg, but as she grew older, it was very obvious that her joint was deformed and the bone growth was very odd. She couldn't use that leg whatsoever. It was heartbreaking, and if I would have known sooner, I would want to save her the pain and cull.

I wanted to try to capture the look and coloration of the joints as they were a bloody red color and in an odd formation. The chick would only slide around on its belly and seemed to be unable to control his feet or legs very well.

I simply wanted to share my experience with this. I would love to learn why this sometimes happens. If there was a way I knew would help this chick thrive, I would have tried to help. But prevention would be key for next time. I plan to incubate more chicks soon .

Feel free to share your experiences or any reasons why it may have happened?

 

[ShrekDawg]

Do you know what hen or eggs it came from? If it came from the same hen/egg both times, it’s possible it’s genetic. I am assuming you have a pretty good amount of birds if you were able to incubate that many eggs at once but if you can figure out what bird these chicks are coming from, either by egg color/shape/size or the look of the chicks, then I would personally not breed from those hens anymore. But it’s possible it might not be genetic. I don’t really know what could be causing it but it does look painful so culling probably was the best option. But if it’s at all possible to try to narrow down what hen these chicks came from (or maybe it is even the roo that is the problem), then I would try to do that, and see if it has a genetic component to it. It might take a while to figure that out though. And it seems like most of the chicks don’t have this issue so it could also be environmental, diet, or something gone wrong during incubation. Either way, good luck and I hope you figure out what the problem is!! Hopefully someone with more experience will be along shortly and will be able to help you more and/or correct me if I am wrong. I would hate to mislead you or anyone who reads this.

 

[rascal66]

Do you know what hen or eggs it came from? If it came from the same hen/egg both times, it’s possible it’s genetic. I am assuming you have a pretty good amount of birds if you were able to incubate that many eggs at once but if you can figure out what bird these chicks are coming from, either by egg color/shape/size or the look of the chicks, then I would personally not breed from those hens anymore. But it’s possible it might not be genetic. I don’t really know what could be causing it but it does look painful so culling probably was the best option. But if it’s at all possible to try to narrow down what hen these chicks came from (or maybe it is even the roo that is the problem), then I would try to do that, and see if it has a genetic component to it. It might take a while to figure that out though. And it seems like most of the chicks don’t have this issue so it could also be environmental, diet, or something gone wrong during incubation. Either way, good luck and I hope you figure out what the problem is!! Hopefully someone with more experience will be along shortly and will be able to help you more and/or correct me if I am wrong. I would hate to mislead you or anyone who reads this.

I can only narrow down to 3 potential hens that could have laid them, but I guess I'll learn more with additional trial and error. I would assume it is more incubation related but I'll keep an eye out in case it keeps happening to specific eggs. I have a total of 13 hens currently.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and offer some ideas. I plan to take down more notes as i continue to breed. Thank you!