Slipped Tendon or Leg Deformity? HELP!

[gracielouis]

Hey everyone, I have a four day old chick that’s very lively eating good drinking good but is really struggling to get around. I attached photos of its legs and I’m wondering if anybody could tell me if this is a slip tendon or leg deformity and what I can do?

 

[2ndTink]

If its a slipped tendon you should be able to feel it. It's hard to tell through a photo.

If you look at the bottom side of it's hock, hold the chick gently tipped back so you can see it well, if the leg is bent a bad leg with a slipped tendon will have a hock that looks flat and wide and you'll feel the tendon on the side of the hock.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Hard to tell from a photo. Try moving the joint and if it is a deformity it shouldn’t bend freely or easily and he likely won’t grow out of it. I hatched a quail recently that hobbled around straight from the shell, couldn’t stand up straight. He got bigger but never better, culled him at six weeks with the extra males. He had blood in his nostrils when we killed him and bloody lungs and trachea, I think he kept getting stepped on (or possible pneumonia)! We couldn’t let him live like that.