[Clarebelle]

I had a quail chick hatch yesterday with on foot which never unfurled so all the toes are still cramped inwards, its other foot has splayed fine. It is hobbling round ok but is there anything I can do for it? Would it help to try and tease the toes forward or would this just end with me breaking them?

[Padge]

Can be temperature (to cold) resulting in week deformed chicks

[Marches Farmer]

I've successfully splinted curled toes in the past - just a sliver of matchstick as necessary and a bit of self-adhesive wound dressing tape.  Usually comes right after a couple of days.

[Clarebelle]

Thanks marches, I've been looking at that on the internet and think i'm going to give it a try when OH gets home tonight. Nothing else wrong with him that I can see so I think its worth giving it a go, I only got 6 chicks in the end so it would be a shame to lose one. its going to be a fidley job though! 

With regards to temperature, he was the only chick with this problem and its only one of his feet. I would expect the problem to be more universal if it had been a temperature problem? The inncy (a brinsea mini eco) has a glass thermometer and i also had a little reptile digital one in there. I went off the glass one for the hatch but the digi one was always about 1 degree lower (the instructions did say it had a tolerance of +- 1 degree) so maybe I should have gone off the digi one, not sure, I guess i'll get a better feel for it over the next few hatches! 

[mintytwoshoes]

Hi Mojo,

So sorry to hear about your chicks - hope things are improving.  How are the feet deformed?  Extra toes or odd angles?
Yes hatching is exhausting I have resisted for the time being as I have just fractured my ribs!!  It is addictive though and dont be put off by bad experience it is worth it.
Thinking of you

[mojocafa]

Hi minty

Sorry to hear about your ribs hope its not too painful...ouch!

The third Cochin is still holding her own so fingers crossed

 Scots dumpys are perfect, mixture of short and long legged, delighted with that result

M

[mintytwoshoes]

Hi Mojo,
Pleased you have some joy....glad Brandy's offspring are ok!
There might be a cochin breed society that you could get some info from.
They are large birds so maybe they need a special diet for breeding - just a thought.
So sad for you - its not easy when they keel over.
On strong painkillers which helps me to cope but reliant on OH for the heavy stuff!!!
Kind regards