Hen has new wounds on her feet each morning!

[ThornyLocust]

My speckled sussex has been developing sores on her feet. It started on the top of one of her toes, and every day she seems to have another. This morning when I opened the coop she was bleeding from a new sore on her leg. She is having more difficulty moving around as more sores appear.

Is it possible that rats or mice are doing this? She roosts on top of the feed container, a galvanized garbage can with lid.

I used hydrogen peroxide on her toes and legs today then applied some petroleum jelly. Should I continue this treatment or try something else?

 

[OutdoorFun4]

poor thing:

 

[Wynette]

Oh, goodness. Don't use peroxide, it's damaging to tissue. It appears she may have a bad case of scaley leg mites - do a search on here for info. on how to treat. Poor thing!

I just looked at your pic again (thanks for posting), and gosh...I'm not so sure on leg mites now. I don't know that they actually cause lesions...hope someone else comes along with more experience in this area! Hang in there - I'm sure help will arrive to your post!

 

[Jenski]

Holy smokes! There are lots of experienced folks who might have suggestions on diagnosis and treatment, but my personal suggestion would be to get her to a vet ASAP. Looks to my non-vet eye like she has more than one thing going on -- may have a nasty case of scaly leg mites, but it also looks like a serious infection as well.

Do you have evidence of mice/rats? Those nasty buggers have no place in a stable/coop/pet home. I imagine you're probably already working on getting rid of them if you have seen sign.

Good luck, and please let us know how this develops! Poor girl.

 

[TrixiePA]

Could it be those mites that get under the leg scales? Your picture looks kinda like others I've seen with that issue.

 

[jjthink]

Others may have direct experience with this sort of thing and hopefully they will see your post.

For starters, just looking at the pics, I'd put neosporin on the open wounds (the kind without the pain relief ingredient) and then I'd be inclined to use bagbalm - very gently applied to her legs and feet. Do the bagbalm every day for at least several days. She should experience relief. Bagbalm alone may do the trick (if you don't have it, feed stores and/or health stores may). I would start this asap today. The stuff is amazingly healing. It takes some time.

Keep us posted.

JJ

Edited to add: Do NOT use hydrogen peroxide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ThornyLocust]

I live on a farm, so mice are ever prevalent around here and no matter how many I kill, there's always more. I haven't seen any evidence of rats, however.

Her legs had mites when I got her but they've improved quite a bit since then (though it hardly looks like it). This might be mites, but it's as if the skin on the top of her toes has been removed! I've seen a lot of birds with leg mites but none of them looked like this. Her feet aren't hot to the touch, so that caused me to believe they're probably not infected.

My vet doesn't treat chickens, unfortunately, so if I can't solve this myself I'll have to put her down

She's my favorite!

 

[Emzyyy]

I think its scaley mites I think the mice and rats would rather go after easy to get chicken feed than the hens foot.

 

[purpletree23]

A treatment for scaly leg mites is a thick coat of petroleum jelly. It suffocates the mites and kills them. In your case I would apply a thick coat of neosporin. You might need a large amount and the Wal-Mart brand is just as good. If it is mites it will kill them and help with healing.

Anything going on with the other chickens? Just to be on the safe side I would separate the injured chicken from the rest until she heals. She may not even have mites. She might have some kind of disease that is just showing itsself. Good luck.

 

[ThornyLocust]

Thanks for all the responses. I will coat her legs in the neosporin and keep everyone posted on her progress. Since the vaseline earlier, she's already getting around better. All the other chickens seem to be fine.