Frost bite - treatment ?

[Icehen99]

Minnesota resident here with the first subzero day . I noticed my hen with the largest combs having some frost bite on her already . We have an open drinking water container and I added less water to it so she wouldn’t dunk her head in the water so much is there anything I can do like apply Vaseline or Mushers secret to help her ? Should I apply any of those “moisturizers” to my other hens should I apply or do anything or just let it be ?

We are going to add some extra insulation to the coop ceiling .

I’m assuming that white spot is beginning frost bite on my sapphire olive egger

 

[AinaWGSD]

Looks like mild frostbite to me. Generally the recommendation is to leave it alone. It's a small enough area that trying to treat it topically is likely to cause her more pain than the frostbite itself. Eventually that tip will self amputate, but it won't affect her health. I had to pullets last year with similar frostbite and they never seemed to notice.

Trying to prevent frostbite with mushers secret, Vaseline, etc is also not recommended. Usually ointments like those will actually cause more damage because of the moisture in them.

If you can block the wind on the run that will help prevent frostbite. My coop is inside a garage so no chance of ventilation issues causing moisture buildup, so most likely what caused my girls' frostbite was the wind. This year I've wrapped the bottom 5 feet of the run with plastic to cut the wind.

I've also switched them to a nipple waterer with a de-icer. Not only does it prevent them from getting wet while drinking from a bowl, it also means they have liquid water available 24/7.

 

[Debbie292d]

Agreed. Just leave it alone is best.

We're in WI and deal with high humidity and below zero temps much of the winter.

Humidity causes frostbite. It could be sub-zero in your coop, and if the humidity is under 70% they won't get frostbite. Usually, more ventilation is needed, but here it doesn't help because outside, it's 70% or more humidity most of the time, so that would make it worse.

How we do it by using horse bedding pellets on the floor, which dries out the poop. We heat our coops to 40°F and have DIY nipple buckets in all of the coops, so no open water. The ones that freeze, we put a fishtank heater in those and plug them into a thermo plug so they shut off at 45F, turn on at 35F. We also took out a window in both main coops and put a digital exhaust fan in with a vent (cold air return) in the human door.

Doing the above keeps the humidity in the coop in the low to mid 60s, no matter how humid it is outside.

 

[Icehen99]

Agreed. Just leave it alone is best.

We're in WI and deal with high humidity and below zero temps much of the winter.

Humidity causes frostbite. It could be sub-zero in your coop, and if the humidity is under 70% they won't get frostbite. Usually, more ventilation is needed, but here it doesn't help because outside, it's 70% or more humidity most of the time, so that would make it worse.

How we do it by using horse bedding pellets on the floor, which dries out the poop. We heat our coops to 40°F and have DIY nipple buckets in all of the coops, so no open water. The ones that freeze, we put a fishtank heater in those and plug them into a thermo plug so they shut off at 45F, turn on at 35F. We also took out a window in both main coops and put a digital exhaust fan in with a vent (cold air return) in the human door.

Doing the above keeps the humidity in the coop in the low to mid 60s, no matter how humid it is outside.

Yeah I’m waiting on a new/ better water system to be delivered with the nipple style . I have the run wrapped with some plastic panels and keep water and food outside . The coop has hemp deep bedding . Seems like adequate ventilation . Thank you