One of my Chick's feet looks werid

[sullivan's chicklets]

I am new to the area of raising chickens and I havent had much time to keep an eye on them becuase of school. My dad let one of the hens brood and now we have 5 chicks. All of the chicks are active and interested in food and nothing seams to be wrong except one chick's foot looks like a windmill...? on both feet the toes are pointed tword the left in a curved fashion. It doesnt seam to be in pain when I straighten them however the toes wont stay straight. Is there something I can do to fix it? or do I just need to house it in a special area for the rest of its life?


Thanks in advance

 

[bj taylor]

one of my chicks had curved toes. i couldn't tell why. in about 2-3 weeks it's toes were straight. again don't know why. i just figure it was all the walking/running it was doing was good physical therapy.

 

[chickenmaniac]

maybe it was inbreed ....

 

[nurse_turtle]

You can put little bandaid braces on their feet, but I would just leave it be.

 

[Kyoht]

Sometimes this can be heredity or a riboflavin deficiency (vitamin B2). This deficiency is usually from the flock the egg came from or from the chick itself and can start at 10days and get worse. If the chick's starter feed has inefficient Vit B2 then you can try and supplement it. If its not due to the vitamin then not much you can do. I have one hen atm that has this and she is fine (5yrs old now).

Also this can be caused by too slick of a walking surface in the brooder.

 

[sullivan's chicklets]

Thanks for the Info I'm not sure what all the chick feed has in it, but I will check and it might be the cage I've got them in. Its pretty large, but the whole thing is metal and there is no straw or shavings in there so that could be it too......it also could be inbreeding I bought two of my 10 from the same perosn and he did say something about them being from different clutches but the same father.......I'm also glad to know it can live healthy that way idk what I would have done if it would have been bad for my little chicklet. Thanks again for all your help

 

[nurse_turtle]

You can't put chicks into a metal brooder without any bedding material. At least several paper towels. Don't use newspaper. It's too slippery. Maybe put in an old towel until you can get a bag of shavings.