One of my broodies hatched out 4 chicks for us from our backyard hens' eggs. Two of them only have three toes! 1 in the back, and two in the front. The fourth toe is only about an eight of what it should be. The two chicks that have feet like this came from an EE/SLcochin mix hen and a brown leghorn/SLcochin roo. Ths is a slight amount of feathering on their legs. Genetics.....sure is interesting. Both get along fine.
a lot of cochins carry that fault of a shortened or missing toe, i think it comes from the feathering on the feet gene, not sure, you should look at the parents and check their feet, i have one that just hatched and it has a shortened outer toes, hope this helps
