Adult hens with crooked toes?

I have read articles about young chicks that get crooked toes and that you are to splint them with toothe picks or what ever....now, i have noticed two of my young hens, just coming into lay that have crooked toes and i wondered should i catch them and splint their toes? I had a look at one of them...again..newbie here so i have to admit i don't really know what i am looking at other than they are toes...
they are rather segmented, toe nail seems a little loose on this one foot; perhaps from being walked on. No injury that i could see...
what to do...what to do??
and why does this happen? is it injury, genetics, diet?

possibly some genetic component; most commonly, I believe, incubation temperature

perhaps i wasn't clear....they didn't have this as chicks

ok, sorry. Then no idea. Never heard of that happening. Injury, perhaps?

Some talk has been that it could be caused from too much protein in their diet growing up.
Also could have just caught them on something and broke them, and they healed that way.
Splinting would only work if you caught them right as they broke them though, most likely they are already healed that way.

too much protein in their diet as youngsters? If they are fed standard chicken feeds..grower, starter..doesn't that have the "proper" amount of protein? Could it be from the scratch? We only give a scoop in the am and pm and have 40 chickens.....
This is really a puzzler.... thanks for the suggestions.....everyone..
i was going to splint her foot tomorrow..hmm

I believe when it happens later in life, it is a genetic thing. Conformation of the foot leads to a change in the way the toes hit the ground and leads to the curling. Please understand this is just my own opinion from some experience with this.
I had some Marans that this happened to. There were certainly bred to tight for to long as they showed other issues from it as well.
As others have said, incubation issues can certainly lead to it in chicks, but that can be genetics as well. You never know for sure unless you breed them. I personally don't breed anything with twisted toes unless I am using it in a total outcross and I have nothing else.

I am wondering if it is genetic too. You should mention what breed or breeds if it is evidencing in more than one breed. Maybe others may have experienced certain breeds that may have this more in common. Worthy of discussion anyways. I have seen a crooked toe occasionally. My barred rock hen had a crooked toe. Don't have her anymore, and do not recall if it was from birth or not. I would imagine that a bird with a crooked toe could still function pretty much normally. Now if all the toes were crooked, there could certainly be some awful issues associated with that. How many are you seeing with this? Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

I seriously doubt if it is anything to do with diet. You are feeding the birds correctly. It would be interesting to figure out for sure, but you may never get to the bottom of it, some things just happen.

I'm going to bet that this discussion concerns Delawares that hatched from hatching eggs we supplied. If this is the case it is a genetic problem. We imported a number of Delaware day olds from McMurrays in July 2012. Although they did not grow into the size that we hoped they did develop into good layer (our best layers right now). We ordered 25 from Iowa and approachly half were roosters. One rooster was kept for breeding and the others were butchered. Of the pullets one was removed from breeding because a crooked toe, but this may have been after Big Rock purchased hatching eggs. When the rooster was selected no crooked toes were present, but in September of this year I noticed one slightly crooked middle toe. That rooster was recently processed because of the crooked toe and he was too agressive when his hens were being handled. The majority of our Delawares this year have crooked toes. Of these the roosters have been or will be processed. The pullets will used only for eating eggs. One nice corect pullet from two hatches may be put in with the breeding Delawares. If we stay with these Delawares will will need to find a rooster from another source. There are some undesireable genetics lurking in the McMurray Delawares.

Rosewood I wish you were closer I have a couple real Nice Cockerels This year Bright yellow legs and great feet and nice white color The dad is 9.5 lbs and the hens are good size and great layers
I will try and post some pics of the Cockerels in a new post give me a few minutes to get to photo bucket

I would be interested, but I don't really have room until spring.

thats okay as we will be hatching alot come spring at least I hope so did you see the pics I posted that is a couple of the Cockerels

Sorry about the thread drift

Rosewood...no...not your birds.. I love your hens..they are a thing of beauty and very friendly, just picked one up today and she actually gave me a snuggle...so, no those Delawares... their feet look perfectly normal.   It is from one of the Welsummers that i got this summer...and i am going to try and spint her toes to see if i can at least get it from underneath her as she does seem to have a little wobble in her walk...AND, i have a bumblefoot out there that also needs some pedicure issues and may as well do them both at the same time. She is a beautiful bird anyways..and we are not going to be breeding her...just taking her eggs.
The other chicken i can't remember, and now will have to go find her....hers wasn't so bad; could be RIR

You guys are such a great lot...it is a mystery to me too and genetics seems the likely culprit for sure.

Well I'm glad the Delawares turned out well for you, Bigrock. I did not have a good summer here with either turkeys or chickens. To make matters worse I had a single pen of this year's hatch become ill this week and lost a good part of them including a Delaware rooster I comnsidered using next spring. I still don't know what was the problem but treated with medicated feed.