My chicken has 2 deformed toes what do I do!?!? (Silkie)

[SunnySid3Up]

Hi, I just recently hatched a silkie chick, and after it hatched I noticed its third toe on both feet was curled upwards, and shorter than the other toes. These toes also don't have nails on them, the chick stands up, but when it tries walking it falls and kind of struggles to keep balance. If you guys have anything that will help please let me know!

 

[alinas2010]

Welcome to the site. Sorry to hear about the chick. How is it doing? Did you do anything for it yet? Can you post pictures please and we can try to get someone to help out.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

Its doing fine now, it's toe came back inward and it's running around doing great!

 

[SnackMeat]

For future reference, while I've only dealt with toes curling downward and inward, or to the side, you make little "waffle shoes" from a piece of thin, stiff cardboard (think a layer or two of cereal box cardboard) or cutting an old grocery store member's plastic card to size. Then tape the toe to it, and then wrap the whole foot.


I assume with your case, one could tape the cardboard to the top of the foot to better press downward with firmness, but we have only done cardboard on the bottom of the foot.

They walk funny for a bit but it doesn't slow them down much. Ideally you would reapply every 24 hours but we have gone 2-3 days. You have to watch to make sure the foot is clean before rewrapping. Do that for about a week and the toes tend to go in the normal direction.


You probably wouldn't want to breed that silkie, so hopefully it's a hen so you can easily eat the eggs instead of of allow them to hatch.


An interesting thing that I read that may or may not be true-- if there are heat spikes in the first two weeks of incubation, the fetus is obviously more likely to die. But the last week of incubation, heat spikes are more likely to cause leg and feet deformations.

Because both of the toes being shorter and no nail, my guess is it's a genetic thing being passed on.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

For future reference, while I've only dealt with toes curling downward and inward, or to the side, you make little "waffle shoes" from a piece of thin, stiff cardboard (think a layer or two of cereal box cardboard) or cutting an old grocery store member's plastic card to size. Then tape the toe to it, and then wrap the whole foot.


I assume with your case, one could tape the cardboard to the top of the foot to better press downward with firmness, but we have only done cardboard on the bottom of the foot.

They walk funny for a bit but it doesn't slow them down much. Ideally you would reapply every 24 hours but we have gone 2-3 days. You have to watch to make sure the foot is clean before rewrapping. Do that for about a week and the toes tend to go in the normal direction.


You probably wouldn't want to breed that silkie, so hopefully it's a hen so you can easily eat the eggs instead of of allow them to hatch.


An interesting thing that I read that may or may not be true-- if there are heat spikes in the first two weeks of incubation, the fetus is obviously more likely to die. But the last week of incubation, heat spikes are more likely to cause leg and feet deformations.

Because both of the toes being shorter and no nail, my guess is it's a genetic thing being passed on.

I am likely going to sell it, and not breed.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

There also weren't any heat spikes, and the toe is a normal length now, and I am also noticing a small toenail, I think it may have been premature, cause it was also significantly smaller than any other chick I have ever hatched.

 

[SnackMeat]

That would make sense. That's really cool it grew in I wouldn't have expected that even though I've had some who needed more rest time initially and seemed to need "a little more time in the oven" compared to other chicks.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

This is the toe now, it's flat, and on the other side there is a tiny nail.