Scaly Leg Mites - Need Best / Easiest / Quickest Solution - Scaley

[as110]

Is this leg mites? I have treared with epsom salt soak and vaselibe 3 times in the last two weeks. I separated her in the last 4 days during the day and put her back on the roost for the night, but she went to the top and I think it hurts to come down do tonight she sleeps in a large box in the basement. She came from a farm where they had too many birds. Here is the picture from today after I scrubbed it with an electric tooth brush.

 

[azygous]

I discovered a superior treatment for scaly leg mites last summer. I had a nine-year-old Light Brahma with a very painful case. They kept recurring after being treated with castor oil and a commercial leg mite spray.

I decided to mix up a warm soak with Elector PSP )spinosad. I was able to soak the legs as well as the feet for several minutes, really getting the stuff up under the scales, which is difficult to do with most other topical treatments.

It killed the leg mites, and the scales returned to normal in record time. Best of all, my hen was a whole lot more comfortable almost immediately.

 

[trudyg]

PouleChick, castor oil is used as a laxative so try looking at the pharmacy near the enema supplies. It's not messy at all if you use gloves. I mixed tea tree oil into the castor oil and then used a paint brush to work it in. It stays much longer than vaseline so you don't have to apply so often.

 

[azygous]

If you have liquid permethrin, mix up a dipping solution and soak the legs in it for ten minutes. That way it will get all the way under the scales that spraying would miss.

This way, it's not necessary to do the Vaseline.

And kerosene is highly toxic to chickens. If they peck at their legs while the kerosene is on them, they could ingest the neurotoxin and bad things would follow. It mystifies me why anyone would suggest using this dangerous stuff on chickens, especially when there are so many safe treatments.

 

[azygous]

If you just have a ready to use spray container instead of concentrate, you won't be able to make a dipping solution. I imagine permethrin comes in a concentrate to mix up large amounts to spray down a coop, for example.

I use Elector PSP (spinosad) and it's a concentrate. I mix a dipping solution and soak the chickens legs and feet in it. One soak and the mites are gone for good.

But soaking in warm water and then spraying with your permethrin, followed by a thick coating of Vaseline or castor oil after the legs are good and dry will work, too. The oil seems messy, but it eventually all wears off and the legs are clean again, minus the leg mites.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Great, keep the ideas coming!

I'm going to try whatever is easiest and most commonly proven to work the fastest first and then move down the line towards more difficult and more invasive (internal drug) methods. We just started getting eggs from our girls, so I'd like to enjoy them while we're getting them.

What insecticides are there (besides DE) that you can spray / powder inside a coop to kill mites, but that is safe for the birds and we can still eat their eggs?

I'm going to try to take pictures and document my progress as we go along.

Again, thanks for the suggestions and please keep them coming!!!

 

[FLchook]

Ooo the world of leg mites. Been there done that! After many trials this is what I found that works. Especially if you have heavy feathered legs like mind did.

Youll need lots of mineral oil, a small bottle of tea tree oil (find it in the pharmacy or herbal store) and a deep bowl.

Pour good amount of mineral oil in the bowl, then add just enough of the tea tree oil so that you begin to smell it in the mixture (make sure your not just smelling the bottle hehe)
Grab a bird dip and put it back on the roost, grab next bird dip and put back on the roost. Continue until all birds are done. The oil is messy, but it will drip onto the roosts killing the mites that live in there.

Oh, clean the coop out and put fresh bedding down. I sprayed with orange guard. Its an all natural bug killer. I found it at Ace Hardware, can get it at health food stores too.

Good luck!
Shannon

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

Nifty sorry I did not see this before. Glad your coop is as clean as new, that's always a good feeling, but scaly leg mites live the entire life cycle on the leg so you did not have to do that. Treating the perches and coop is for body mites, either chicken or red type.

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/lvstk2/MF2387.PDF

I have had the best luck with using Tea Tree Oil ointment to treat scaly leg mites. It has a natural insectiside and it smothers too. In a bad case I do a couple days in a row then once a week for couple weeks. That's it generally. As this OZNET states you can use any oil and you can mix in a bit of insectiside with it if you want, but just oil will work. I just found the Tea Tree faster.

 

[froggiesheins]

I am going to throw in my 2 cents worth. I am the QUEEN [well by my house] of getting rid of these buggers. THE best way [althought for some of you peeps it is impractical] is to catch the afflicted one, wrap in a towel on your lap and scrap away all the cootie junk under every scale, this can take anywhere from 1/2 hour to two hours. If you put the towel over the birdies head they calm down alot. After scraping, take a stiff toothbrush and scrub under the scales. Then put vaseline on and place birdie in a clean clean clean cage/coop. Repeat ALL OF THIS in two days. Ususally it only takes one repeat to get the scales cleaned out and healing. Then all you have to do is use the "oil" be it vaseline, cooking, Nu-Stock or other fancy oils balms. ALL YOU ARE DOING is smothering the buggers, so go for the cheep stuff.

These pictures below are of scaley leg mites that have started to invade the bone....HORRORS!
This little OEGB was brought to me to "fix". Little "Lucky" had lost one toe completely and a second one was starting to die. He had on his feet an accumulation of mite cooties / filth & Blu-cote. I cried when I saw him, never have I seen such a bad case. I had to use pliers to break the "seal" of all this crap around his feet. Scraped till I was down to live skin [this took over 2 hours], slathered neosporin on and wrapped loosely in cotton guaze and paper tape. 3 days later took off the wraps and cleaned again, repeated wrapping. Once there was a healthy looking scab on the raw skin, I started leaving the bandage off. It took 2 weeks for the left foot to heal and all toes had BEAUTIFUL pink skin showing and ALL toes left reacted to pain WOOT!!!!! AS A FOOTNOTE: I also very carefully clipped his toe nails, evertime I debrided, till they showed blood, this was to encourage the bllod flow to the end of the toe.
Lucky has gone on to live with the little boy that found him and you would never know that this little roo has had a life threatening foot problem

FIRST TWO PICTURES ARE: BEFORE: [ but AFTER two hours of scraping & debriding]

TWO WEEKS LATER....

HERE IS LUCKY WAS A MODEL PATIENT!

ng,].

QUESTION FROM A BYCer.......
Thanks for that response, froggiesheins. What did you use the do the scraping?

VERY STEADY hands, good close-up eyesight and a cheep paring knife. You want the knife, or similair sharp edge, to be thin, small and a little flexible. You will be choking up on the knife and holding it ON the blade for greater control. Think like you are scraping goobers from under your own finger& toe nail beds.
It is so much easier to work on LF too! I was working on all small banty sized birds..

This is the chain of events that occurs with the mite: First they will raise the scales off the leg till the scale dies and falls off. the mites then work deeper into the scale bed and start chewing there way around a joint [skin easier to penetrate]. They just keep eating away around the joint and leaving their trail of cooties to keep building up. Once they have broken the skin and bleeding/fuilds start to ooze, that combined with the "cooties" to start forming a ring of junk around the joint. as they keep eating the ring gets more fluids and keeps building till you have a constricting ring that just gets tighter and tighter till it gets to the point it starts cutting off circulation and necrosis occurs. On Lucky, if you look at the right foot right outside toe, you can see where the buggers actually cut off the circulation and death of the end of the toe occured. It will eventually fall off on its own. Now on the left foot middle toe, this one got to the point where it was gettin constricted . I was able to save that toe by getting that ring of crap off of it and clipping the nail until it bled a little bit to encourage circulation. Left foot far right toe, was in worse shape where the skin was open and the fluids/blood were actively flowing. I was very diligent about cleaning and keeping a scab from forming untill there was good circualtion down thru the toe nail. I also gently bent/massaged all the toes. cleaned / wrapped in loose gauze / neosporin / and secured all with PAPER tape. CLEAN CLEAN bedding. Leave on 2- 3 days, remove, repeat.

AS A FOOTNOTE: the bird pictured in this lost all his scales from the mites, IF you can save the scales by scraping under them that is great.

 

[One Chick Two]

This was Sir Banty when we found him this past June, age unknown, but he had HUGE spurs, so we know he was at least 1 1/2 years old. He'd been beaten up by his brothers, and had lived mostly in a cage. His legs had moderate scaly mites, were badly thickened, bleeding up at the hocks and had some deep cracks. His legs were unbelieveably stiff, like tree limbs, poor guy.


This was a closeup of his legs then: The whitish yellow was the raised scales. His toes did not bend easily then.



Sorry, technical difficulty…

We dipped Sir Banty daily for a month, in mineral oil, then rubbed it in, concentrating the rubbing in on the worst, most raised areas and deepest cracks. After that, treatment became every few days, then a few times a month for a few months and still, just on occasion. I think the treatment actually worked quickly, but we wanted to be absolutely sure.

Didn't ever use a toothbrush, as we felt at first he might have tender areas like at the hock, where he was bleeding. And then we just plain forgot about using a brush on his legs. After a short time, we found dipping his legs in DE after mineral oil treatment made him happier-, as he wasn't so oily and high stepping, and the oil then didn't transfer onto his feathers or the roost. Also, I feel it made the treatment a bit "oily/muddy" which coated on his legs overall better I believe, having done treatments both ways we preferred DE afterward.

In this photo in July, you can see Sir Banty had been treated the day before, and a majority of the DE had absorbed into the mineral oil. He'd had also lost his two top curling tail feathers- for whatever reason.


This photo was taken in the beginning of October, four months later. His legs were well on the way to healing. He still had a few round patches of old dead crust left to still slough off. His new leg skin was dark, shiny and flexible. He had few small cracks left, and his legs became thinner and more shapely and much more flexible. Even those spurs and toenails looked better. We still treated him occasionally, but we actual believed by then the mites were long since expired.


Here is Sir Banty now:




He'd been recently treated in this photo, so there was a slight whitish film still left... but his legs are looking good, and you can see there are much shiner, and more shapely than they were in the beginning of treatment. His mobility is excellent, and he has very little in the way of feet cracks now. He seems happy.

If anyone decides to dip in oil, I recommend it. Just be very consistent, as healing the scales takes a good long while- there is no quick fix to healing time. I do recommend dipping in DE afterward- it did seem to help, and definitely made him more comfortable.