Chicken nail overgrowth cause?

[swamphiker]

I have a backyard flock, including a 2.5 year old wyandotte whose feet are pictured below. Note the nail overgrowth and raised scales. She's the only bird with overgrown nails, everyone else's are a much more normal length. Their run is large and they spend plenty of time scratching.

I went ahead and trimmed her nails with a cat/dog nail trimmer and treated the whole flock with topical ivermectin due to suspected scaly leg mites. I feel badly that I didn't notice until it got to this point since her nails must have been causing great discomfort. Could scaly leg mites have caused this? Her activity level has been seemingly normal though understandably she wasn't able to run quite as quickly as the others, she's laying, and I didn't see anything else wrong with her when I looked her over while trimming her nails.

 

[Eggcessive]

In my flock of many healthy chickens, I have occasionally seen the one odd hen who had overgrown nails and scaly leg mites. These ones usually would not dust bathe and tended to be loners. So I would just trim the nails occasionally, and slather some Vaseline into the leg scales twice a week until the scales are healthy looking. Look her over for any lice or mites.