Older Hens getting Older

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Hiii! I have 3 older hens that are starting to get slower daily and are having some issues and looking a little raggedy. Here’s Oreo our Barred Rock Hen who was named after our 16 year old black lab mixed who passed on hospice a few months before starting our chicken journey. Anyways Oreo has a couple concerns I’d like some help with. First I’d like to say I am planning on giving the older girls actual baths this week. I bathed Oreo last summer bc of our rooster being messy all over her bottom. Anyways. So the black marks I’m showing on her wattles I was wondering if they are ingrown hairs or bugs. I was curious last night and on one of her raw spots I will also be showing (she has 2 very raw and red bald spots one right below her vent and it has a bulge and the other is on her chest) I decided to pull out one of the black things with tweezers and it was just an ingrown feather. She will not let me touch her wattles I can try during her bath however I don’t know if chickens get hairs on their wattles and combs or if it’s definitely mites lice or ticks. While taking pics I noticed how ugly chickens are lol and very hairy. They are oh so cute until you zoom in. Omg.

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Also any advice for all the ingrown hairs? Anything to soak them in to loosen skin? Or should I be plucking all of them I know they bother Oreo for sure.

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Never realized chickens have eye lashes and men like hair scruff all over their skin that’s exposed

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Also I circled these areas also that concern me.

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Also I circled these areas also that concern me.

The sides left right upper in blue circle look swollen and looks like something is coming out of the bottom circle or it’s part of an ingrown hair I need to remove.

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Good thing I love picking things. I have a zit popper set and would love to go to town on all those black Comedone looking things and possibly a pore of winer.

 

[NatJ]

Do you know what pinfeathers look like? Pinfeathers can sometimes look a bit like ingrown hairs. You should not pluck out pinfeathers, because they are the normal early stage of growing new feathers.

Have you tried looking very closely at some of your other chickens? If they all have the same things, and do not seem bothered, then the things are probably normal (even if you never noticed them before.)

I do not know what the little black things are, which is why I am offering somewhat general suggestions of what else to try looking for or looking at.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would leave them alone, unless you see evidence of an ingrown feather abscess. Chickens pick feathers sometimes, which might be why some are missing. How old are your chickens? Do they live outside in a coop and run?

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

Do you know what pinfeathers look like? Pinfeathers can sometimes look a bit like ingrown hairs. You should not pluck out pinfeathers, because they are the normal early stage of growing new feathers.

Have you tried looking very closely at some of your other chickens? If they all have the same things, and do not seem bothered, then the things are probably normal (even if you never noticed them before.)

I do not know what the little black things are, which is why I am offering somewhat general suggestions of what else to try looking for or looking at.

They are all fine! All the other 16 hens. No issues besides older girls getting older. We have never had fleas ticks mites nothing in our flock over the last 4 years we have had them!

 

[MegTheHenEggQueen]

I would leave them alone, unless you see evidence of an ingrown feather abscess. Chickens pick feathers sometimes, which might be why some are missing. How old are your chickens? Do they live outside in a coop and run?

Free range in fenced in backyard during the day only go in coop to sleep and lay eggs and eat when they don’t want to forage and to drink.