8/11/2023 0 Comments Silkie chicken feet![]() ![]() It is something that just happens from time to time, sometimes without a cause that can be easily discovered. If you have one chick with curly toes, it's not likely to be something systemic. It really shouldn't take more than two or three days in total, and in a few weeks, you'll probably never be able to tell she had a curly toe problem! If the toes remain in a normal position, your work here is done! If they curl or start to ball into a fist again, but a boot back on for another day. You'll want to leave the boot on for two days or so. Once she learns, she can get around no problem! And if she gets the adhesive wet and the curly toe chick boot falls off-chicks do like to tread in their water dishes sometimes-that's okay. She more or less just needs a little time to figure out how to use crutches. ![]() ![]() But even though she may at first not know what to do with the thing on her foot, she'll soon forget about it, and will probably be running around like normal in just a few hours. Trimming just helps to lighten the weight and awkwardness of your little boot/cast so your chick can acclimate to the new boot more quickly. You don't REALLY even have to trim the curly toe boot. Your helper can gently hold the chick, while you keep the chick's foot from moving while trimming the boot.īut, hey. This is also why having a helper is a good idea. You can see exactly where those toes are. ![]() You can carefully trim any excess tape or band-aid from around the foot, Again, CAREFULLY! You don't want to snip your little chick's toes! This is, incidentally, why I like the clear tape. Just make sure to get the toes into a reasonably normal looking position, and tape into place. You're not looking for exact angles, where if you're off by a degree it's then all ruined. The very cool thing is that your chick boot really doesn't have to be perfect. Then place or fold another piece of tape on top. You'll need to gently hold the chick steady, and straighten her toes into the correct position over the sticky band-aid or piece of tape. You can apply the curly toe chick boot by yourself, but it will probably be a lot easier with help. This is why band-aids usually work quite well, because the adhesive is meant to be removed from skin. My favorite is just clear medical tape, but band-aids are often used, or even another sort of tape, so long as it can be removed easily without hurting your chick. You can use a number of things to create the curly toe boot, some of which you probably have laying around the house, anyway. So you can more or less create a little splint for her curly toes, a little boot, that will hold her toes in the correct position until they stay that way. This is because directly after a chick hatches, her bones aren't entirely hardened. But the good news is that curly toes is a condition that is extremely easy to take care of at home if you do it right away. She may be trying to walk on her knuckles, or on the side of her feet. Because her toes aren't spread out like normal, she can have trouble walking, poor thing. Whatever the cause of your chick's curly toes may be though, it will look as if they are curled into a fist. This is more likely in a home incubator simply because they tend to be less high-tech and less accurate than the advanced incubators used by large hatcheries. Another possibility, especially with at-home artificial incubation, is that the incubation temperature is off. It can also be that she's suffering from a riboflavin deficiency, either from a deficient diet in the hen that laid her egg, or because she is not consuming enough herself. Sometimes the injury might occur after she's hatched. It's possible that she has injured a foot-sometimes this can occur while she's in the egg as she's trying to position herself correctly for hatching. Illustration for My Pet Chicken by Ray Yang ![]()
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