a few weeks ago i bought 7 chicks. last week one stopped walking upright on its feet and started walking flat with its legs straight out. i got rid of that one and now another one is doing it. they seem to still want to eat, but they can't scratch. they also seem to tilt and their wings droop after a few days of walking funny. what in the world is this? i don't want to lose them all.

I've been lucky and haven't had this kind of trouble. From what I've read I suggest you try a keyword seach on mareks and then newcastle. Its just a guess on my part but its a place to start.

In "Could this be a Spraddle Leg" discussion, I offered an alternative to Marek's or Newcastle desease, and here is what I wrote:

To anyone who cares about an alternate, I had a similar thing happen to mee and it is not mareks. Mareks kill right away and the chick cannot get up, it's legs are all spread. What you had was roboflavin defficiency and you needed to treat it by feeding beef liver and yeast in small chuncks. I have personally revived 2 out of 3 "marek-wanna-bes" by doing that. Read "Pastured Poultry" by Joes Salatin and it will be a lot clearer. Riboflavin quickly deteriorates and it's defficiency causes the nervs on the hock joint to become inflamed. Chicks don't eat grass, so they can't get it from plant. They do like meat though, so liver is basically the cheapest way to get fiboflavin in them.

If you find it useful, please consider doing it.

Aram
I was reading your post to Tracymarie. I've got 18 new chicks and no problems so far. My question is: Should there be a defficiency if I use a quality starter ration ? Mine says it has riboflavin added, but it doesn't say how much.
Bill