question about curled toes - interesting new piece of information

[Chris09]

Is the toe Curled or is it Crooked?

Curled Toe Paralysis is when the toes are curled and the chick walks on the tops of his curled toes, rather than the sides of the toes as with crooked toes.
Curled toes are caused by a deficiency in Riboflavin...

Chicks with Crooked Toe usually get crooked toes when the humidity during incubation is too low but they can also get them if the floor of the rearing area / brooder is too cold and they can also inherit them from their parents.

Chris

 

[HennyJenny]

The toes are severely curled outward - they are not flacid and seem to have some tone to them when touched. They were not curled at hatch and did not begin to curl until the birds' legs were maturing. I don't believe it is curly toe paralysis as they don't exhibit any other symptoms nor was it an incubation problem. I believe (at this point anyway) it was probably due to the light used in the brooder that was infrared light not meant for the brooding of poultry and was too hot and too bright). This is apparently a known issue with infrared light. It may have something to do with nutrition absorbtion due to the UV intensity of the light. I was unable to determine from the three articles I read why they think the light causes this deformity. It also explains why out of the ten varieties I brooded this spring - only the barnevelder's developed this deformity (they were the only ones exposed to this light). All other conditions being the same - they were the only ones with this "sun lamp". They do not have problems walking. I suspect they will have trouble roosting and I will have to accomdate them in some way. I only updated the post because I thought others might find the information regarding the quality of the light in the brooder interesting. I think when we talk about light quality and effects we talk about aggression and feather picking but until now, I hadn't seen any other side effects of poor quality light especially in the brooder.

I could be totally wrong to believe what I read but considering the one factor among forty some odd birds that was different was the brooder light - I am more inclined to believe this was a factor rather than incubation or nutrition due to feed.

 

[aveca]

Quote:
You know, I was feeding a chick hatched very early this year, wanted to try out a new bator..So I bought this purina starter thinking I could rest easy and in good hands , ...The one egg that hatched out of 1 was feed purina starter...It seemed like thas baby began to develop these twisted toes ,it was very minute but I noticed it..and none of our birds have twisted toes. I had to do supplementing with boiled eggs, carrots, little tuna whenever I was making sandwiches and starter , she straightened up but cant show her because of it, shes out of decent parents but was underdeveloped in parts.. thou very large in size, She even had a tremor in her walk for a while..Ive never seen anything like that befor..it has cleared up now...Thats when I first noticed that something in that feed was missing.

.three chickes hatched later on were supplemented right off the bat and 2 of them may be shown late september, absolutly no problems and full brother to the pullet born very early, plus I let the later babies out in a pen in the yard often to pick up then extras in greens and juicy buggs..I think they do so much better ..I dont know what is going on with these feeds, if they are cheaping out on ingredients or what, Im going to start mixing my own again.. I had always thought purina was a great feed, I bought it cause I was tired of driving all the way down into Pa to pick up my blend..but My hens didnt look as good this year they just looked dull and went throught a terrible molt and would not recover like they had in the past..ect...not sure weather this was just a bad batch or what.. one of the breeders in here is helping me out with this his birds feathers that like australorps have a green sheen are absolutly metalic green from his feed..So Im getting into that.

 

[HennyJenny]

This is the first year I've used the Purina Starter Grower. I just assumed it was of the quality I needed. I honestly didn't think too much about it. I am buying more feed tomorrow - I will definitely compare my options. Thank you for letting me know your experience. This is also the first time I've used medicated feed. I definitely need to do some research on the matter.

 

[NoSkiveez]

A few months back I purchased some chicks (day olds) from a local breeder and ran into the same issue. It didn't just effect a specific gender, if effected all of them. We had gotten 3 differnt breeds from them. It got worse over time. I later opted not to keep them and disclosed it when I sold the birds.it turns out the woman I sold them to also got birds from them and had the same issue. I told the person I got them from about the issue and it was mentioned that sometimes that happens when you use generational breeding only. They apparently had inbred or line bred (not sure what the correct term would be) repeatedly.

Just my experience, I'm sure its not the same for every situation.