ChickensThrustUponThem
Chirping
3 of my hens have these dark spots on their combs (see picture--that particular hen also has a darker face) and in doing research on my own before posting, I've seen that dark areas on combs = frostbite. I cannot tell from looking if this is that, or mud, or a fungus, or just darker pigmentation.
The only thing holding me back from totally flipping out is the fact that I don't know when the chickens would have gotten cold enough to even GET frostbite. We live in Texas and had that awful blizzard back in February, but it hasn't been below freezing at all since then, I think. During the blizzard and within a few weeks after, all of the flock's combs and waddles looked fine. I had kept monitoring them throughout the freeze. The spots showed up after everything was getting warm and springy.
Could it be a delayed expression of frostbite? I don't know if that's even a thing. The hens are young, too, and didn't even really have combs to speak of until after the blizzard, so it wasn't like they had just a ton of exposed skin. None of the roos had the spots at all, and they DID have combs back in February.
None of the chickens seem to be in any pain, at least not that I can tell. They all have their usual appetites, they're social with each other (mutual dust bathing, no severe aggression, etc), and they have decent energy for zooming around their yard like velociraptors.
My other thought is that those spots are suspiciously similar in color to the dirt around here, which is almost black and wretchedly sticky when wet. I would wash them to see, but although my mission to hand tame them is going pretty well, they still run away from me if I try to touch them without food in hand.
I tried to talk to my usual livestock vet about it when we saw him last, but apparently he's distinctly not an avian vet. The search for an avian vet continues, and will be rapidly sped up if it seems likely that this is some kind of injury/illness and not just mud.
Thanks, y'all.
The only thing holding me back from totally flipping out is the fact that I don't know when the chickens would have gotten cold enough to even GET frostbite. We live in Texas and had that awful blizzard back in February, but it hasn't been below freezing at all since then, I think. During the blizzard and within a few weeks after, all of the flock's combs and waddles looked fine. I had kept monitoring them throughout the freeze. The spots showed up after everything was getting warm and springy.
Could it be a delayed expression of frostbite? I don't know if that's even a thing. The hens are young, too, and didn't even really have combs to speak of until after the blizzard, so it wasn't like they had just a ton of exposed skin. None of the roos had the spots at all, and they DID have combs back in February.
None of the chickens seem to be in any pain, at least not that I can tell. They all have their usual appetites, they're social with each other (mutual dust bathing, no severe aggression, etc), and they have decent energy for zooming around their yard like velociraptors.
My other thought is that those spots are suspiciously similar in color to the dirt around here, which is almost black and wretchedly sticky when wet. I would wash them to see, but although my mission to hand tame them is going pretty well, they still run away from me if I try to touch them without food in hand.
I tried to talk to my usual livestock vet about it when we saw him last, but apparently he's distinctly not an avian vet. The search for an avian vet continues, and will be rapidly sped up if it seems likely that this is some kind of injury/illness and not just mud.
Thanks, y'all.
