I’ve got 25 6-week-olds and about half of them have severely curled toes. I haven’t seen this previously with our incubated eggs. Reading online brings up so many possibilities of what went wrong so I wonder if anyone here can help narrow down the culprit?
My flock consists of a Marans rooster and a Limousin and about 20 hens mostly Marans and Limousin but a few random breeds as well. We incubated only the brown Marans eggs. Of course given that we have a Limousin rooster as well the resulting chicks are not necessarily pure. The flock eats our home-grow wheat and barley (no commercial feed) and go outside in a huge orchard run.
Incubator was in our kitchen. Once hatched, the chicks went to a box in the corner of the kitchen. Kitchen is heated by wood but the floor is tile so it’s possible the floor was cold. Bottom of the box had a piece of metal siding cut from our camper van roof. Stayed in the box for the first few days and then went outside into a stall with straw floor. Chicks ate commercial crumble for first three weeks and then moved to the second age pellet and also get our wheat.
How can I know if it was due to our management or if it’s a hereditary thing? And then due to our rooster or perhaps just one hen? Marans rooster is aggressive anyway so I wouldn’t mind seeing him gone
Rooster himself doesn’t have crooked toes but could it be in genes?
Last year’s chicks did not have this issue. But this year we have some of the hens who hatched last year. I think the rooster is different - we had a bunch of the roosters from last year’s crop living with the flock until they got sold off and I think we accidentally sold our former rooster and kept a young one.
I’ve included a photo of one of them. It’s quite severe but they seem to be walking and scratching like normal.
My flock consists of a Marans rooster and a Limousin and about 20 hens mostly Marans and Limousin but a few random breeds as well. We incubated only the brown Marans eggs. Of course given that we have a Limousin rooster as well the resulting chicks are not necessarily pure. The flock eats our home-grow wheat and barley (no commercial feed) and go outside in a huge orchard run.
Incubator was in our kitchen. Once hatched, the chicks went to a box in the corner of the kitchen. Kitchen is heated by wood but the floor is tile so it’s possible the floor was cold. Bottom of the box had a piece of metal siding cut from our camper van roof. Stayed in the box for the first few days and then went outside into a stall with straw floor. Chicks ate commercial crumble for first three weeks and then moved to the second age pellet and also get our wheat.
How can I know if it was due to our management or if it’s a hereditary thing? And then due to our rooster or perhaps just one hen? Marans rooster is aggressive anyway so I wouldn’t mind seeing him gone
Rooster himself doesn’t have crooked toes but could it be in genes?Last year’s chicks did not have this issue. But this year we have some of the hens who hatched last year. I think the rooster is different - we had a bunch of the roosters from last year’s crop living with the flock until they got sold off and I think we accidentally sold our former rooster and kept a young one.
I’ve included a photo of one of them. It’s quite severe but they seem to be walking and scratching like normal.
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