I have a silkie chick that is about 3 1/2 weeks old now. When I got her she was approximately 1 week old, and I did not realize until I got home with her that she had some pretty bad deformities of her feet. (She was in a brooder with lots of other chicks, and I chose her because she was the only black silkie). Incidentally, she also has a deformity of her wing on the right side (like the outermost "joint" of the wing just kind of protrudes and didn't grow quite right).
Upon discovering her feet problems, I immediately made her some "shoes" using lightweight cardboard and vetwrap. I removed the wood shavings because she stumbled over them, and have been keeping them on puppy pads and paper towels. Every day since, I have been checking her feet and re-wrapping them for cleanliness. I have wrapped them in multiple ways to straighten the toes and ankles as much as possible, sometimes just "shoes" and sometimes "boots", even have "splinted" the ankles for a few days with toothpicks, used bandaids to hold her toes straight and used a piece of vetwrap between her ankles to keep her legs from splaying out. I have been doing this for about 2 1/2 weeks now. She eats medicated chick starter, and I have given her Poly-Vi-Sol without iron as well as Poultry Cell vitamins intermittently. She gets around pretty well with the "boots" on, and is very healthy and growing normally otherwise. Problem is, when I take the wraps off, her feet are still pretty crooked. She does stand on the bottom of her feet now rather than the sides, but they still rotate inward pretty severely, and she is unable to walk very well at all on a smooth surface.
I would appreciate any suggestions on anything else I can do to help her... how long should I continue to do this before I acknowledge that it isn't going to improve? Would she be better off if I just unwrap her feet and try to let her learn to walk on them as best she can?
Pic below of feet when I got her and now with her shoes on.
Upon discovering her feet problems, I immediately made her some "shoes" using lightweight cardboard and vetwrap. I removed the wood shavings because she stumbled over them, and have been keeping them on puppy pads and paper towels. Every day since, I have been checking her feet and re-wrapping them for cleanliness. I have wrapped them in multiple ways to straighten the toes and ankles as much as possible, sometimes just "shoes" and sometimes "boots", even have "splinted" the ankles for a few days with toothpicks, used bandaids to hold her toes straight and used a piece of vetwrap between her ankles to keep her legs from splaying out. I have been doing this for about 2 1/2 weeks now. She eats medicated chick starter, and I have given her Poly-Vi-Sol without iron as well as Poultry Cell vitamins intermittently. She gets around pretty well with the "boots" on, and is very healthy and growing normally otherwise. Problem is, when I take the wraps off, her feet are still pretty crooked. She does stand on the bottom of her feet now rather than the sides, but they still rotate inward pretty severely, and she is unable to walk very well at all on a smooth surface.
I would appreciate any suggestions on anything else I can do to help her... how long should I continue to do this before I acknowledge that it isn't going to improve? Would she be better off if I just unwrap her feet and try to let her learn to walk on them as best she can?
Pic below of feet when I got her and now with her shoes on.
