Blackbird chicks with leg injuries.

sudzs

There is a Blackbird family living and breeding away in my back garden. When the first brood fledged there seemed to be just two, one of which had an injured leg. It didn't seem to be doing as well as the other one so I started chucking a bit of food towards it. In the end both of them were hopping over to me at the back door to be fed. The one with two good legs has disappeared but the injured one (the bad leg is completely lifeless) is still around and every morning when I open the blinds in the kitchen it flies over to the windowsill to be fed!

The second brood is out and about now, there are three of them but the funny thing is, one of them also has an injured leg.

So I'm wondering is it a common thing for blackbird chicks to have injured legs. I have never seen a blackbird on one leg before. I wonder if it's genetic.... or if there's a design flaw in the nest!

Anyway, here's a couple of pics of the two of them!
(first time posting photos so I hope it works! )

Chick no.1 on the backdoor step! Can't really see the injured leg from this side other than it is held up off the ground.

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And here's it's younger sibling! Opposite leg but it's definataly injured in some way too.

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LBROCHELLE

ya i agree

cscook

If it's when they're that young I'd wonder if it was deformed at birth rather than injured? Especially when it's happened with both the broods.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Seems like a genetic deformation. These things happen. If it's a handicap to natural survival then the bird will not survive and the genetic error will not get passed on. If it has no impact on the survival of the chicks then it could well become passed on for several generations.