Ascites/not eating/scaly leg mites

[Eddie12109]

Hi everyone,
two hens of mine have ascites:
one is a golden comet who is about5-6 years old and a black sex link who is 3. The golden comet has had ascites for over a month now and I have been giving her cinnamon, oregano, acv, and water and also lily of the desert aloe detox and her water belly is barely even there, it has greatly reduced in size. She has also had scaly leg mites for a while as well and I have given her legs dawn dish soap baths, vaseline and white vinegar and a toothbrush treatments. she ‘molted’ her scales during her molt and she still had new scales poking up. I have been going back to treating her legs just because they are still up but they aren’t changing. It’s been more than two months. She is a concern because she isn’t eating much and she is on the lower side of the pecking order. I bring her in and feed her specially and she does eat ravenously but it’s just when she is with her flock she doesn’t as much, if i didnt bring her in to feed her she would probably starve.

My other hen was starting to lay eggs after her molt and got ascites and has so far stopped (I have made a thread about it before). She has had breathing problems throughout her life and I have given her many different things for it. (Baytril, tetracycline/doxycilin)
She does sneeze with some clear liquid coming out when she sneezes and shakes or head and barely opens her mouth but she mainly has labored breathing. I knew ascites would probably come for her and it finally did. She is also lower on the pecking order and doesn’t eat much. She will eat when I bring her in but she just seems out of it. I usually offer her scrambled eggs and she eats a tiny bit but she is really on edge thinking that another chicken might be near her even though she is safe on my porch.
I have started giving her the regular treatment I gave my golden comet and nothing so far.
I know I can very well drain her but I had a bad experience once for another one who was on her death bed and by the time I learned about ascites she was obviously going to die that day. I made one last attempt to save her by draining her and when she was done she just kept leaking out her ascites and she died that night. I am not ready to drain them again. She didn’t seem to go into cardiac arrest but still. (She had another illness and the ascites came in her last days, she was 8 years old)
My main concern is my black sex link, she is not eating much at all... i know it could very well be here ascites but the golden comet has barely any liquid in her abdomen and she doesn’t eat by the flock either.
I already have two hens living separate from the flock due to picking and they share a wall with the other Hens and get the same treatments as them and the golden comet and black sex link pick on them so they cant join their flock and i cant have three separate groups of chickens living separately.
My questions are:
has anyone dealt with scaly leg mites that just wont go away? I also have two other hens who have mild scaly leg mites who have been getting the same treatment and nothing has changed. They haven’t gotten worse but it wont get better.
Any other ideas for treating my respiratory problem hen? I have done research and there doesn’t seem like there is much more i can do for her breathing... it happens even when it is cold so i know it isnt due to weather.
how can i make her want to eat more scrambled eggs? Should i take her further away from her friends so she cant hear or see them and see if she will eat then... she doesn’t like me too much though so I’m not sure about that.
i have gotten Swings, mirrors, and little toys for them to play with in their coop and they are only interested in food But i cant keep them occupied by treats constantly, they have a lot of space in their coop as well.
i know that draining her is an option but not one i am willing to take currently, i doubt it will help anyways since my golden comet isn’t eating and she doesnt have much in her.
Any opinions or advice on this would be great!

 

[azygous]

I can tell how much you love your chickens. It oozes out of every word.

The leg mites is a simple fix if you're willing to make an investment in a product I swear by. Elector PSP. It's expensive but it's deceptively so since it's a very concentrated liquid that will make gallons and gallons of insecticide. (You'll save on shipping since the bottle weighs eight ounces)

Elector is spinosad, biological rather than poisonous so very safe to use on chickens. I mix a teaspoon into a gallon of water and soak the legs and feet for ten minutes. Mites are gone for good. It also works great on lice and coop mites and other pesky insects you don't want around the run.

I sympathize with you on having to deal with acites. I had a hen with ascites and I drained her myself, but did it messily and she got an infection at the needle site and died from it. You are right, though, draining really doesn't solve the issue, only prolonging the liver failure.

But the other problem with the hens not wanting to eat when they are near the others sounds like a case of bully/victim syndrome which I've dealt with successfully.
Chickens may be bullied away from the feeder and they become entrenched in their role as a victim, losing weight and never really getting an adequate diet because they associate eating with getting bullied.

You are wearing yourself out catering to each of these victims when you could be rehabilitating them and reintegrating them into the flock. The process takes about three weeks and the hen is back with the flock competing normally for food and standing up for herself to her prior bullies. Here's what I wrote up on my technique. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/chicken-bully-chicken-victim-a-two-sided-issue.73923/

 

[Eddie12109]

So i have looked into the elector psp and i just got a spray that should help but if it doesn’t, i will get that.
And yes you are very true about the draining and I’m sorry you had a hen die From that.
alright so I realized i accidentally wrote two hens living separately, i meant one, she is Eddie (my username ). She used to have a partner but she was the one who died from ascites. Since last March Eddie has been living in the separate coop but still interacts with all of my other hens everyday. In march she got heat stroke and maggots and as a result from the heat stroke she Has curled toes (i have made many threads about her, like the soft shelled egg). Since her partner teddy was being constantly picked on and had an underlying condition That i couldnt treat, she was brought in with Eddie. I would’ve loved if I could have rejoined them in the flock but i knew due to eddies extremely hard time walking and teddy being picked on, we decided to build an extra coop and have them live there. They were given half of the day to explore our yard and loved being near each other. They were best friends But Eddie loves being near me, when i squat down and hold my hands out she will try to run to me and comes and hugs me. And when i call her name she ’’growls/purrs’; and when i hold her she always makes a purring nouse. I believe Eddie is very content at 8 years Old and still interacts without a fence with her two 8 year old friends. she is living By herself but there are three younger hens who will always try to pick on her and i do spend more than two hours outside with her everyday So i dont think she needs to be integrated (Especially since it has been so long)
your article was very helpful and i am going to be putting the most severe one, the black sex link in a “Jail” and she will be there for a week and then i will start to integrate her if i can. The golden comet picks on the black sex link so i cant separate them together. After her vacation is hopefully successful, i will do the same with the golden comet (she eats alot when she is with me and although she isn’t doing great the black sex link is worse).

 

[Eddie12109]

Ok so I separated her for the rest of the day before bed and she has already eaten more than usual which is a good sign.
I have another question about another hen though. I believe she is a red egg production who is my third eight year old. she hasn’t laid in a long time and she has something like ascites. Her abdomen is hanging on the bottom a bit and doesn’t got out too much. Her butt isn’t filled with liquid though, when you squeeze it, it is hardish like definitely not liquid it has some hardness but her butt isn’t super hard. I can wiggle it around.
I thought it was just because she was old and had a little extra in her abdomen but you told me that hens can lay eggs like yours at 11 years old. Would this be just some fatness on her or could it be an egg related problem. It seems to have grown a tiny bit but it isn’t a tumor sort of thing.

 

[azygous]

Hens do accumulate fat just behind the legs. As long as a hen is behaving normally, it's likely only fat. But it can also be a sign of reproductive infection. The hen would probably not be acting normally, though.

Tumors are rock hard. If you feel a soft lump, it's not a tumor.

 

[Eddie12109]

So today the golden comet was brought in to be treated for scaly leg mites and she had two poops. One was normal but the other looked like this... what does it mean?

 

[azygous]

It only means something if she's acting lethargic. Otherwise, it indicates high water content food or drinking a lot of water,

 

[Eddie12109]

Ok... because she has kinda been separating herself from the group but I believe it is due to the ascites and she eats normally when she is with me. The only thing is when I feel her crop I don’t feel water, only food. So could this be a sign or something else? So if she was lethargic would what you say that was?
and now something new that is stressful: the red egg production hen with the fatty bottom; seemed to poop some kind of yolk. it is 6:30 so all of my hens are in bed and I was walking away when three of my hens jumped down and started eating whatever the red egg production pooped. I got a picture but it isn’t that good... it seems to have the gooey feeling of an egg yolk.
my chickens wouldn’t jump down in the dark just because of a random poop so somehow they knew it was a yolkish thing and started to eat it. There wasn’t a shell or anything.
her fatty butt has been there for awhile now... probably a little less than a month.. could this be related.

 

[azygous]

Yes. She's passing shell-less eggs. She may feel better now that it's out, unless there' another one right behind it. Look for signs of it in the morning. I've learned that with shell-less eggs, often there are two. This happens with older hens. If the egg breaks inside her, it can start an infection.

If she's not acting well in the morning, tail held low, acting withdrawn, give her a calcium tablet to help get the second egg out. Hopefully, it will slip out intact during the night. You may see evidence of it in spite of the chickens eating it.

 

[Eddie12109]

Alright thank you so much for your advice!!
I will be able to see her early in the morning but not before they jump down so they might eat whatever she passes or I will get up earlier.
If it is an infection would I be giving amoxicillin?
and since her abdomen is that fatty stuff, would she have an infection already?
she wasn’t acting weird all day but her crop was big today... like clogged up but it is usually close to that size.
I noticed all my hens have a tiny bit of stuff in their crops in the morning but she has a little more... this has been going on for awhile though.