My roo is not walking well...

[rodandbrandy]

I am hoping someone knows what is wrong. I have 20+ hens and 1 roo, they are all 8 months old and are doing great until about three days ago I noticed my rooster was walking with one foot held in a fist, he got around fine but had a limp, I picked him up and checked out his foot and leg, no obvious problems, so today out at the coop I noticed that now both feet are in fists, he seems to be able to straighten his feet if they hit the ground right but more often than not he is walking around with his feet in a fist, he is eating and drinking and appears healthy, so what is wrong? If anyone has any ideas let me know. Thanks
Brandy

 

[CUDA]

Not really sure about this one, the only thing that comes to mind is maybe a vitamin deficiency, or a genetic problem. Might want to give him some vitamins though, sure can't hurt anything. Wish I could help more. Good luck!

 

[rodandbrandy]

What kind of vitamins?

 

[CUDA]

I would look to mostly vitamin D, but a multi wouldn't be a bad idea. A cheap way to do this is to take one of your multivitamins that you take yourself, break in in half, then break that up some, and put it down his throat. Do this every day, for a week or so, and see if it helps. You can purchase water soluble ones down to the farm supply store too. Good luck!

 

[dlhunicorn]

I would not play around with human dosage vitamins...some (not al) of the micro nutrients in human supplements can be very toxic as many (such as selenium) have a very narrow therapeutic range for birds. Polyvisol (liquid childrens A-B-D) vitamins at the dosage of three drops once a day for a week then taper off the next is safe... however if you can afford it I highly recommend AviaCharge2000 which can be purchased online from McMurry hatchery... you can give this in addition to the POLYVISOL (or equivalent) as it is a complete nutritional/vitamin supplement developed for use in organic certified systems (it does not supply therapeutic high dose for specific deficiencies so give in addition to the polyvisol which will address the b vitamins)
The specific deficiency associated most often with curled toes is vit B2:
http://www.worldpoultry.net/avian_curled_toe_paralysis/

supplying the supplement POLYVISOL specifically to the bird with the problem and the aviacharge to all the birds cannot hurt if it is something else (which it may well be>>>have a look around for any wet places moldy bedding or grains or such)