Rickets

[Vronmama]

Hello,
I have had chickens for 5 years or so. Overall they have good feed, protection, treats and do well. A few years ago we had a younger chicken have troubles walking. We fed a diet with honey, cat food, hard boiled egg, vitamin D3, other multi vitamins, oatmeal, cod liver oil and yoghurt. Seemed to get better but eventually got significantly worse. Since then we have had two more (older birds) develop this problem. We use the same diet and while there is improvement at first they generally get worse and we have had to euthanize them.
Is commercial feed that nutritionally deficient? We buy fresh and supplement with scratch, mealworms and black sunflower seed. We seem to be doing everything right but are having little success once a bird shows a limp. These are second year birds (all from the same source btw) and this comes on fast and the girls deteriorate fast. Any help or advice please?

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

With all those yummy treats are they still hungry enough to eat their food? I'm thinking of my little boy, he loves junk food or even healthy treats so much that he fills up on them and won't eat his balanced supper.

 

[centrarchid]

Show pictures of affected birds

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. Do you have any pictures of any of the affected chickens?
Are you aware of a leg bone deformity called varus deformity, which can affect one or both legs? It can appear as bowleggedness if it is in both legs.

This was an interesting article about a rickets-like disease:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/419529

Here is some reading about rickets:
http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/rickets