Crooked and Curly Toes in Speckled Sussex PICS ADDED

[wookiee]

So the first batch of speckled sussex I got last year were fed a non-medicated non-organic chick starter and i didn't put vitamins in their water and they developed the crooked toes. When I saw that happening, I immediately added the vitamins, but it didn't stop the progress. This year, I fed organic feed and they had vitamins in their water for the first 5 weeks. I am still getting the crooked toes. But again, just in the speckled sussex. I did not have any crooked toes with my wyandottes, cuckoo marans, or colored rangers and I fed the same organic feed and vitamins. I took them off the vitamins when I put them outside, but I will put them back on and see if I notice any difference. Maybe the speckled sussex need an excess of a certain vitamin or vitamins?

 

[LibertyChick]

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Are you going to be looking for organic Speckled Sussex chicks with straight toes? I have 6 Organic Speckled Sussex all with straight toes. They are 12 weeks old and I'm waiting for someone to sex them for me. I'm hoping to hatch some for the spring...that is if I have girls and a boy.

 

[gootziecat]

I don't have SS but I do have Dominiques with curley and crooked toes. I presented this to the Dom thread and a few others have reported this as well. No one seems to know for sure what causes this, everyone has a theory. Many things can cause this apparently, but as with Wookiee, when you raise other breeds side by side and there are no problems, one can't help but wonder if it involves certain lines in breeds. It's pretty disheartening to spend all the time and expense only to find your line is carrying this. And Aveca I believe the feed companies are at fault with a lot of problems these days. Their food, especially due to no animal protein, is causing some serious deficiencies in our birds. This isn't just my opinion, although I see it myself, but has been verified to me by an independent feed manufacturer.

 

[LibertyChick]

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Did you feed the chicks anything except for the starter? I was always giving them alfalfa sprouts, bits of raw hamburger (they went crazy for that), worms I could find, lightly scrambled eggs, dehydrated dandelion leaf, dehydrated lettuce, and I even gave them some mashed pinto beans. They seemed to love everything. I only put ketchup on something one time and don't remember what it was. This is probably the reason that I thought that my chicks had tumors. I later found out that it was they had full crops. I was giving them lots of greens and getting them not used to eating so much grain (although I didn't think about this at the time, it is probably wise, that way, they are more used to eating greens as opposed to grain...they are great foragers). I just wished I could let them out of their mobile 6x8 run.

I'm raising them organically and will only give them organic food that I buy for myself or organic wilted greens from the store or local farmers market. Medicine will be herbs and homeopathic medicine, possibly colloidal silver if the need arises.

 

[gootziecat]

LibertyChick, usually my chicks go crazy for all sorts of treats, but the Doms didn't seem interested in anything except clover flowers and leaves pretty much. I have raised at least 5-6 different chick breeds this year, most hatched here, and none of them have crooked toes, despite incubation problems from time to time. They were all fed the same feeds and treated pretty much in the same manner enviornmentally. The exception to this was one breed that was hatched out, all splaylegged (no slick surface). That cleared up but a week later, all had split wings. I was told by this independent feed manufacturer those were tendon problems that were caused by a deficiency in manganese and copper in the parent birds.

 

[LibertyChick]

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What is split wings? I think splay leggs is where the leggs are spreading apart and you have to use pipecleaners to tie their leggs closer together, right?

 

[gootziecat]

Yes, splaylegged is when the legs are spread apart and generally the chick has trouble standing. It will usually clear up with treatment, as you suggest or a bandaid, in a few days or so. Split wing is when the primary wing feathers droop and are totally separated from the secondary wing feathers. They can have angel wings also, in which the primary wing feathers actually stick out to the sides. This is a case of angel wing. They can be more severe than this.

 

[LibertyChick]

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Wow, thanks.

 

[egg-cellent]

Alot of those toe problems can be prevented during incubation. Especially at the end. It is mostly caused from not enough humidity at the end of incubation. Something that can help as soon as they are hatched, if you see this. Put them back in the incubator for a day and jack up the humidity really high. This can help relieve some of the their foot problems. Just something that I have learned through my own experiences..

 

[Rabbittammer]

I guess they would technically be crooked toes. The most prevalent deformity is that the outer and/or inner toes are curling, but the curl is to the side and not under.

That's how my chicks toes are the outside toe is curled out and to the back