red line up/down the leg and feet

[gapey]

It appears Swedish Flower Hens also have this phenomenon. I had buff orpingtons in the past and never noticed this on their legs.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I have a 2 year old rooster that I traded for (all my other birds are much younger) and he just started walking funny.  I was worried he had Marek's disease.  I had noticed the red stripe (figured it was a vein) but wondered if he got scraped by attacking the wire in between him and another rooster or if it was leg mites.  When I caught him and flipped him over the stripes sure got more red as he kicked.  His legs looked fine but I still wonder if he has leg mites or bumble foot coming on.

Old thread here. The red line was just a rooster being a rooster...BUT...the weak leg thing... I think this guy brought capillary worms into my flock. He got better, then about a year later he died. Those hens never performed well except briefly in spring and fall. Finally lost a few birds and had a necropsy done. That's when I discovered that Ivermectin isn't a great wormer for capillary worms. Now I worm every month with Safeguard. I never had any health problems in my flock until I got this rooster. If I could start all over again I would have run him through a stringent quarantine first. Up to that point I had hatched out all my birds from eggs and after this rooster I had about three different external parasites to eradicate and apparently capillary worms as well.