Coco is Limping.... any ideas?

[JessB]

Hey guys,

After the amazing response from BYC folks about what I'm doing wrong with my eggs, I thought I would post a picture of Coco, one of the hens at the place I work at. About 2 weeks ago she started limping off and on, we thought maybe someone else had stepped on her. But when I went in this morning I noticed her lying down in a spot she's not normally in. When I went to pick her up she hobbled and fell, then hobbled away. I scooped her up and took as clear pictures as I could.

Has anyone seen this? Her right foot (the one on the left side) is fine, but her left foot she can hardly put pressure on it and has some sort of caked on, warty stuff?






I tried googling warts, feet, chickens, limping, but didn't really find anything that looked like that.

 

[realsis]

could be scaley leg mites. look up a pic of scale leg mites and see what you think? if it is you can buy treatment at the feed store or put vasoline on her leg I believe it smothers the mites. not sure if that's what's going on but it sort of looks like it. look it up and see what you think? good luck!

 

[JessB]

You Realsis, Are Amazing. I would have never guessed! We're going to try the cooking oil treatment right away!!

 

[JessB]

All righty! Day one! Dip Complete and Coco will hang out in my office for the rest of the week. I'm going to dip her 2ce a day (a bit of over kill, but whatever works) and will post pictures on her progress.

This saturday: we're gutting the chicken coop and cleaning it out properly for spring. Although you wouldn't know its spring time. It was 20 degress on the weekend, and last night we got 5 inches of snow and now its 0. So... We'll see how it goes:

 

[JessB]

So here is the start of Day 2. Not sure if there's a whole lot of improvement, but I like to think there is. I'm all about being optimistic

 

[realsis]

once you get those mites smothered she should be on her way to healing! have you tried the vasoline? its pretty thick and might help too. I pray she gets better really soon! God bless!

 

[dawg53]

Get some Nu-Stock on those feet and legs, slather it on. It's going to take quite awhile for her to heal.

 

[JessB]

So, here we are on day 3 and a half of treatment. I think her feet are getting better? Today is the first time I saw her actually stand flat on both feet, so I took a picture of it Her legs are quite pink though, not sure if thats a good thing, or if its the new 'scales/skin' coming out. I did notice the big white wart looking chunks are starting to crack off her feet. especially the big on at the back of her left foot. So thats good.
I'm dipping for 10-15 seconds, twice a day in regular vegetable oil, fully submerging her legs all the way until her feathers start. She takes it like a champ.

This is a picture of Snowflake (white) Sergeant (Tall rooster) and Sully (the hunchback rooster). Funny story about Sully. We used to have 4 HUGE roosters, we called them the 4 Henchmen. They used to pick on all of our chickens, really badly, (I think they're called whine-a-dots?). Anyhow, when Sully was just a chick, one of the roosters stepped on him and damaged his spine, so now he walks with a hobble and his tail is sideways. So yesterday when I was dipping Coco's Feet she was not impressed because of how cold it was and was squawking away. Sully jumped up to my chest level where I was dipping Coco and started rushing at me sideways making SUCH a rucus and trying to intimidate me. He was so angry at me for hurting his precious girlfriend! I laughed so hard, I couldn't help it. When I let her go on the floor, he hopped down and started cooing beside her. It was so cute. I just had to share.

 

[jak2002003]

Hope she gets better soon. I had a few chickens with scaly leg.... i treated them easily with the vaseoline.

But one hen is taking ages to get better. One of her toes is very thin near the top and I think she might loose it. I am treating her the same as the others, but she is so slow to respond. I think some chickens are more prone to getting the mites than others.

 

[JessB]

Mmmm. Thats good information to keep in mind Jak. I've been watching the other chickens feet now closely too. I think there's a possibility that Sergeant our rooster might have them, but I'm just not sure. I'm very excited that she's getting better at least. Hopefully your hen does too. It's hard to watch them when they're hurting