With incubator- hatched or purchased keets, there are a few different types of foot and leg issues that can present themselves.
Curled Toes
Within a few hours of emerging from their shell, keets normally start to gain their feet and walk. Occasionally, and especially in keets who hatch later than the other keets in the hatch, or in keets that have struggled to get out of their shells, their toes are curled and they are unable to walk properly.
Fortunately, the fix for this condition is pretty easy:
Splayed Legs
As with curled toes, splayed (or spraddled) legs occur immediately after hatching. Offering the keet excellent traction immediately is the best remedy for this. Put cheesecloth down in your incubator or hatcher so that the keet has good footing right away. Paper towels, and even the specially designed paper for newly hatched chicks are too slippery for keets.
Above, rotated femur – not a fixable condition.
Right, a hobble made from a produce-type rubberband. Hobbles can also be made from first-aid tape, cut in half and wrapped around the legs. Hold the keet up in the air to get the correct spacing for the legs.
The fix for splayed legs is to make a hobble which will hold the keet’s legs in alignment. It will take him several minutes to learn to walk with the hobble, but he’ll get the hang of it. Usually, 24-48 hours with the hobble are enough to fix the problem – again, given that the keet has good traction underfoot.
Rotated Femur/Dislocated Hip
As discussed above, these conditions in a newly hatched keet are usually a genetic defect or possibly an incubation problem. They are not fixable. The kindest thing to do is to humanely put down the keet. The problem will worsen as the keet gets older and heavier.
Slipped Tendon
In a young keet, a slipped tendon can be caused by an injury, by a too-slick surface, or by vitamin deficiencies. It can also occur when the groove in which the tendon sits, at the back of the leg, did not properly develop.
The telltale sign that the leg problem is a slipped tendon is that the hock joint (the “knee” joint”) is flattened and swollen. If your keet has been on a proper diet and has good traction underfoot, try to ascertain whether the groove is present. Roll your fingers back and forth across the joint, and see if there is a position where the tendon seems to slip into place. If this happens, use vetwrap to tape the leg and allow the tendon to heal and the swelling to reduce. If you cannot find a place where the tendon seems to sit properly, it likely means that the groove is not present. Unfortunately, there is no fix for this condition.
Varus-Valgus Deformity
In keets more than a couple of weeks old, if a leg problem appears in a keet that was previously fine, it is almost certain a deformity of the femur bone, called a varus-valgus deformity. This condition can be genetic. It normally appears between two and seven weeks.
It can be a genetic condition. It can also be caused by a lack of B or D vitamins. However, because this is common in factory-farm birds, where the fast weight gain outstrips what the skeleton can bear, we suspect that the feeding of very high protein feed to keets, especially in combination with small brooder space, may also lead to this deformity developing.
Our group’s anecdotal evidence bears this out: Almost every time we’ve received reports of “splayed legs” suddenly developing at a few weeks of age, we find that the keets were fed a very high protein diet.
Since this is a skeletal problem, there is no fix. A bird allowed to grow up with this condition will be less able to compete for food and unable to care for his feathers, leaving him to suffer during weather extremes. You could keep him as a “special needs” bird, or you could humanely put him down. If your bird develops varus-valgus because of a genetic predisposition, you probably don’t want those genes in your flock.
To prevent this, be cautious of very high protein feed. Make sure your keets have plenty of room to exercise. Try to keep them in a situation where they can get natural sunlight, which helps them get Vitamin D.
Paralysis
A guinea that suddenly loses the use of his legs – but the legs are flexible, not stiff – is likely suffering from botulism, from having ingested something toxic. Keep parakeet charcoal on hand (available at pet stores or online). Mix the charcoal in with food, keep the bird isolated where it can eat and drink. If caught early, the charcoal usually absorbs the toxin and the bird recovers within a few days. In extreme cases, Epsom Salts can be used to flush the crop. However this is a tricky procedure, and you may want to consult a vet for advice and guidance.
