Cracked foot swellings

[ravenseye57]

I have a Black Australorp hen who has been poorly all summer and I'm wondering whether to cull her or try some treatment. She has been listless, ruffled with eye half closed most of the time. She gets up and out with the flock, but just hangs around the food dish and doesn't go out to forage. She's also on the thin side. She walks like an old old lady and now I notice she has swollen cracked areas on her feet. They don't look like the pictures I can find of bumblefoot, but similar in that there are swollen bumps - but no scabs with plugs in them, just infected looking cracks. I thought at first she was just having a difficult molt, but she's finished moulting now and is no better. Her feathers are nice and glossy as new feathers should be, but she always looks a bit rumpled and her tail is always down. Her voice is also odd, a high pitched sort of "hink" sound, like a young rooster makes before they find their adult voice and not at all like normal hen sounds. This makes me wonder if it's a metabolic problem. She has not layed in about six months as far as I can tell.

 

[Pickaduck]

It sounds like your hen has multiple things going on at once. Has she been eating enough? Does her crop look and feel normal? If she is eating normally but is thin then it might be worms. Have you wormed your chickens anytime recently?

The legs sound maybe like they have scaly leg mites, that can cause cracking and pain which would explain the hobbling.

If it's been this long since she's laid an egg then I would suspect she is an internal layer as well.

 

[ravenseye57]

She eats alot, and I didn't really realize she was losing weight until I had to pick her up yesterday. She's fluffy so she looks big. I'm leaning towards culling, especially if she could have something contagious. She seemed to find being picked up painful and she looks so miserable. I don't have the time or funds to spend too much effort on one hen, but she has seemed just slightly better since finishing her molt and I hate to give up now. The foot trouble is kind of the last straw though, but if there's something I can try like epsom salt soaks I'd be willing to give it a go. I figured the non-laying was from moulting, although my other two Australorps continued laying through molt. I'm selling my eggs as organic, so I've just used garlic and cayenne as anti parasiticals. I don't know of anything else that would be allowed but I'll look into it. None of my other chickens have any sign of mites and I put DE in their dust baths. Come to think of it though, she doesn't do much except eat and sleep so she may not have been dust bathing much. Can DE be applied to the legs?

 

[ravenseye57]

I looked at pics of scaly leg mite damage and that doesn't look like what's going on. The sweelings are on the top of the foot and look similar to bumblefoot but with cracks and no plug or scab.

 

[ravenseye57]

I've been trying the vaseline treatment whenever I can catch her (easy at first, but today she wouldn't let me pick her up, she hates the vaseline!) with a little bacitracin for good measure. She seems a bit better, so maybe it is the mites. Could that plus molting make her that debilitated? I'll try to worm her too, since she's not laying. After examining her more closely, I'd say she isn't really thin - just thinner than she looks. Her feathers don't lay down smoothly like the other Australorps. She has a frowsy disorderly look. I think she's always had the odd feathering and been kind of slow and quiet compared to the other A's who are very peppy and a bit excitable. Can chickens have thyroid trouble?