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

[as110]

Yesterday 2 pieces fell off the left leg; one large from the top of the leg and one small from a finger, just when I was thinking the condition is so bad I don't think it will get better. I am encouraged by this. Now I can see that there are no scales on the legs. Are they going to grow back?

If I treat the other birds with vaseline, will they be able to get on and hold on to the roost? I think they will be slippery. ?

 

[TinaMcrorie]

Hey everyone!

We've got scaly leg mites. A couple of our 7 hens look affected, but one of our RIR looks the worst... by far.

I've tasked Emily with researching how to treat them, but I wanted to post here to leverage the great wisdom of the group. Here are my questions:

1) Is this really scaly leg mites?
2) What is the BEST solution?

I know there are LOTS of suggestions (Vaseline, DE, orange oil, WD-40, etc. etc. etc.). I don't know how many of these are old wives tales or super excellent solutions that seriously work.

So, if you have experience with whatever you see in the pic below, and you effectively treated it, please reply with what worked best / easiest / quickest for you and your girls.

Thanks so much in advance for your help and ideas!

Hi I have rescued a badly treated hen who has extremely severe leg mite. Soak her feet every day in warm water and cover in vaseline. Put 3 drops of imvervctin flea drops got from vets as not licensed for hens. Once a week soak her legs in surgical spirit and again apply vaseline. It works but takes time each day.

 

[Diannastarr]

know-it-alls suck. Truthfully I hate cleaning up after poopy animals and we have a good system to avoid it. mine have been mite free for many years. To me the key is free range nonconfinement. We rehab creatures big and small just by free ranging them. Confining the animals is the cause of most ills. Its almost impossible to clean an area of mites without wasting a ton of time doing gross things. To me chickens who are stuck in a wood coop are destined for mites. Never seen a raised scale in my flock ever. Use a metal wire enclosure for chickens at night with concrete floor and for roosting clean pvc poles if you don't want to clean mites forever. Can't lie I love castor oil tho it works awesomely to grow longer hair and lashes.

i totally agree with you..!!!! i do the same for all my animals , cant stand to keep any animal cooped up, i feel that its most unhealthy, it just amazes me how animals can stay kind of well as some do living in that kind of artificial environment , and i think to my self how would i like to live like that...? we have a coop only for nest boxes & to lock them up for safety at night & that's it,the only time my birds spend any time in doors at all, other wise they are all free range happy & healthy mine have been mite free for years & i dont expect any , but if that ever happened i

would use caster oil, i have been told that the botanical name for caster oil means the plant of Christ,i use it on my skin all the time & have for years , i always go the natural route first above all else to keep my family & animals strong & healthy, before any thing happens, my flock is out in a clean natural environment all the time, nothing is better then nature when it comes to staying strong & healthy..!

 

[chicknmania]

I don't know if I said this before, but Permethrin is supposed to help. I don't like using it because it's a powerful pesticide, but in severe cases I would probably do one dip just to save the bird some suffering. Or, in birds with feather feet, it is probably less messy.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Yesterday 2 pieces fell off the left leg; one large from the top of the leg and one small from a finger, just when I was thinking the condition is so bad I don't think it will get better. I am encouraged by this. Now I can see that there are no scales on the legs. Are they going to grow back?

If I treat the other birds with vaseline, will they be able to get on and hold on to the roost? I think they will be slippery. ?

Somehow I missed seeing this post. How is everything going? Have the scales grown back? For your question about slippery roosts, we use 2-3 inch fence posts for the roosts and they can get slippery. The birds learn to adjust.

 

[Diannastarr]

i love this
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect from Chief Seattle, right on ..!!.

 

[Diannastarr]

o yeah slippery indeed , we dont need that, no slippery roosts ! im sure the chickens wont like slipping off their roosts either HA, our roosts have always been fresh cedar wood and that will always help in keeping all bugs away , the wood of a cedar is especially repellent to insects & its the one wood that bugs hate..!

 

[as110]

Hena's legs healed, I didn't have to do soaks, brushing and vaseline for more than a few weeks, but I was doing it every 3-4 days, not once a week. The scales started to grow back.
She was old and started to lay scrambled eggs. She had gout, we thought she had a broken leg but it was just mineral deposits. She is gone now.

 

[chicknmania]

Hena's legs healed, I didn't have to do soaks, brushing and vaseline for more than a few weeks, but I was doing it every 3-4 days, not once a week. The scales started to grow back.
She was old and started to lay scrambled eggs. She had gout, we thought she had a broken leg but it was just mineral deposits. She is gone now.

Sorry for your loss. how old was she?

 

[as110]

She was around 4 years old. She came from a large flock from a family factory farm, she was kept with a few other hens because she was fancy. They had to get rid of some hens due to the numbers and we picked the old fancy ones. She was laying an egg without calcium once every 5 days even though she had oyster shells too.