NOTE: The chicken in this thread is not mine.
A lady on a Swedish chicken forum has for several months continually been posting very interesting images and information about an extremely bad case of scaly leg mite on a hen of hers, which she treated ONLY by applying fat ointment, thereby suffocating the minuscule perpetrators. I'll re-post the images here, along with the date when they were originally posted, plus eventual useful info.
The ointment she used was of the Swedish brand Hästsalva Fyra Ess, intended to soften the skin of horses in order to prevent rashes and friction, with the active ingredients petrolatum (vaseline), tall oil, turpentine and eucalyptol.
As for more detailed exposition on the treatment, she recommends treating bad cases every day to every three days, progressively letting more days pass between treatments as the legs start to heal. Also, apply the ointment against the direction in which the scales are growing, in "the wrong way" if you will, to really get it in under them.
August 22
Before treatment.
August 23
After a mere day of treatment, the scurf started to come off in great big flakes.
August 24
Massive improvement.
-
August 25
August 27
August 31
September 2
September 8
Here, she mentions in a comment that she smears the legs roughly once a week.
September 19
Today
This is quite something. Many a chicken expert would recommend euthanization in a case as severe as the one in the first picture - not because the issue would be untreatable, but because they'd deem it likely that the bird would suffer so much throughout the treatment that it simply wouldn't be worth it. Such a question lies amid the territory of moral philosophers rather than fowl-sages, but I for one would, encouraged by the hasty recovery seen above, definitely go for the treatment route when faced with any level of scaly leg mite infestation, rather than reach for the axe.
A lady on a Swedish chicken forum has for several months continually been posting very interesting images and information about an extremely bad case of scaly leg mite on a hen of hers, which she treated ONLY by applying fat ointment, thereby suffocating the minuscule perpetrators. I'll re-post the images here, along with the date when they were originally posted, plus eventual useful info.
The ointment she used was of the Swedish brand Hästsalva Fyra Ess, intended to soften the skin of horses in order to prevent rashes and friction, with the active ingredients petrolatum (vaseline), tall oil, turpentine and eucalyptol.
As for more detailed exposition on the treatment, she recommends treating bad cases every day to every three days, progressively letting more days pass between treatments as the legs start to heal. Also, apply the ointment against the direction in which the scales are growing, in "the wrong way" if you will, to really get it in under them.
August 22
Before treatment.
August 23
After a mere day of treatment, the scurf started to come off in great big flakes.
August 24
Massive improvement.
August 25
August 27
August 31
September 2
September 8
Here, she mentions in a comment that she smears the legs roughly once a week.
September 19
Today
This is quite something. Many a chicken expert would recommend euthanization in a case as severe as the one in the first picture - not because the issue would be untreatable, but because they'd deem it likely that the bird would suffer so much throughout the treatment that it simply wouldn't be worth it. Such a question lies amid the territory of moral philosophers rather than fowl-sages, but I for one would, encouraged by the hasty recovery seen above, definitely go for the treatment route when faced with any level of scaly leg mite infestation, rather than reach for the axe.
