One of my chickens has swollen toes on one foot. Her normally black feet are turning white where they are swollen and one of her toe nails has fallen off. She still walks around fine and is still laying. Any idea what might cause this foot problem? None of the others have it.

-- Bonnie Witthuhn (bwitt@tir.com), April 14, 2000

Answers

Bonnie, there are a certain number of diseases that could cause foot problems. Are the rest of your chickens ok? Is this chicken new to the flock? I'm hoping that disease isn't the cause of it. I'm thinking it could be one of two things-frostbite or circulatory inhibition.

If her foot's been frozen, nothing you can do. Try to catch her and look carefully at her foot. At this point it may be hard to find, but there's the possibility that she's got something wrapped around her foot. Could be thread, string from a feed sack, anything. And it could be buried in the swelling at this point. I've even had a rooster pick up a bent nail and get it up on his "ankle" somehow. By the time we saw it, there wasn't much left to see of the nail and we had a terrible time getting it off.

Some of the possible disease that could cause lameness (although don't really sound like what you're describing) bumblefoot, sod disease, several types of gout, polyneuritis, rickets, perosis, curled-toe disease, fowl paralysis, fowl cholera, arthritis, scaly leg, I think I missed some. And I'm not going back.

Since she seems otherwise to be healthy, I'd look careful for mechanical injury and administer whatever help I could. That could include lancing, cleaning and packing. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), April 15, 2000.

Bonnie, there is a really great poultry site:www.ameraserve.com They have a super message board.

-- Jill Faerber (lance1_86404@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.