Hot to Treat Distended Crop and Leg Mites?

[welasharon]

Any oil. Cooking oil, mineral oil, vegetable oil, baby oil....the idea is to smother the mites. Yes I have used it and it works. Just use it (some say daily, some say every few days) and the mites will die. I only treated them three times. How bad are her legs? I had to soak some of the ones I treated and I had to remove the crusty stuff.
sharon

 

[FuzzyButtsFarm]

I totaly understand your situation, having just come off of being on food stamps. Any kind of oil, shortning or grease will work. But I have found it works better if you soak her feet in soapy water for a few min. and scrub the scales with a soft brush to get rid of the crud that mites excrete makes the oil grease etc. work better. My new roo actually liked the warm water it must feel good. I used a old coffee can to submerge his feet. Get the help of one of you room mates. It makes it alot easier when two people to do this.

 

[OlyChickenGuy]

[Link to a Photo] <-- Her legs look an awful lot like this, except the scales on the area just above the toes are at nearly 90* or more to her leg! Pretty grotesque, huh??

Everything I do for any animal I have to do on my own, unless there's an emergency. My house mates are not keen on helping with tasks such as "Please hold this for five minutes". The good news is, I'm a certified veterinary assistant and VERY used to restraining animals on my own - and have worked with many rescued chickens, so I've managed to develop that "magic touch" that calms them down almost instantly. Quite a nice trick to have on hand ( no pun intended - har har ).

So, now that it is agreed that oil is a good choice for the job... How long should I be treating her? I seem to see anywhere between three days and two weeks - which are both WAY shorter than I thought I would be in for! Also, can I pour oil once into a bowl or cup that I submerge her legs in and use that same pouring throughout the treatment, or should I be re-pouring for every treatment?



As of now, I think my plan of action will be to once a day soak her legs in warm water ( avoid soap since it can hurt the feathers, and in this case the warm water should be sufficient ), scrub gently with an old toothbrush, focusing on trying to remove the grit from under the scales. After soaking and brushing, submerge legs to hocks in oil, set for about a minute ( or should I go as long as fifteen?? ), set in bath tub for maybe about twenty minutes so she has time for the oil to drip off some excess before placing her back in her iso-tank. Be prepared for scales to fall off, and treat any open wounds that should occur with triple-antibiotic ointment ( would go for iodine, but since we're trying to suffocate, the ointment is a good cream base that'll stick and smother ).

Sound like a good battle plan?

 

[Frannabelle]

Sounds like!

Sound like a good battle plan?

 

[welasharon]

It should do fine. I just dipped and let go. I had about 50 or so to treat so I only treated them two or three times. There were a few that were so bad I brought them home to give them more intensive care.
sharon

 

[chkn]

It's called Scarlet Oil Wound Dressing. You can get it at feed and pet supply stores. Actually, it doesn't come with a sprayer top. When I got it at the feed store, the lady gave me a sprayer top (you know, typical twist on pump spray top you'd have on like a Windex bottle). You just take the regular cap of and put on the spray cap. The plastic tube that went into the reservoir was a little long for the bottle so I snipped off an inch or so. Basically, you change it from something you dab on to something you spray on. It has oil in it that kills the mites plus it disinfects. If you've had a lot of problems with mites, the legs do get infected.

 

[Chickenaddict]

Heres a cool way to get rid of those leg mites once and for all in one easy treatment. I have had my fair share over the years, rescued a few hens with extremely bad scaley leg mites to the point of loosing toes.

What you need...
Gauze
Triple antibiotic ointment like neosporin or generic form WITHOUT the pain reliever. Or regular vasoline will do it too
Vetwrap.

What I did was soak their feet in epsom salt and betadine solution for a few minutes to get the yuckies off.
Dry them off and slather the triple antibiotic on there as thick as you can. Take a piece of gauze and slather that with the antibiotic as well. Put the gauze on their feet/legs, in between toes ect. Once the whole area is covered take the vetwrap and cut strips to go over the vetwrap going between the toes again so the hen still has full use of her foot. Leave the "moisture wrap" on for 2-3 days. When you pull the wrap off all that built up crud and crusty stuff will just peel right off. There may be a tad bit of bleeding depending on how bad it is if so and she has any opened up wounds under all that gunk repeat process once more.

 

[OlyChickenGuy]

UPDATE:

Started oil treatment last night. She's living in an iso tank in my room, so she hasn't become horribly icky and gross. Soaked her legs in warm water, and took a tooth brush and brushed her legs - had gunk and scales falling off left and right!! Then I dipped her legs in vegetable oil for about five minutes each - came to the conclusion that next time I do that, I'll do it shirtless because after about seven minutes she decided enough was enough! Although, up to that point she was sitting very calmly and being a wonderful little girl.

Although, by the sounds of it, I only really have to dip her legs in the oil, huh? Also, I keep seeing "two to three treatments", but is that within two to three days, within two weeks...? What's the time frame I should be looking at?



I'll keep the gauze and triple-antibiotic ointment in mind for next time! That's what I was inclined to do when I first saw the condition, but I wasn't sure if the ointment would reach the mites well enough to kill them.

Thanks so much, everyone! I'm now feeling very optimistic about this little girl pulling through. She's got tiny little spurs, so I'm thinking she's a bit on in her age, and even if a bit flighty, she'll calm right down when I get her in my lap. Rejoice that it looks like she'll be a-okay!! Thank you, and I'll keep updated about how she's doing until she's all better and integrated with house mate's flock!

 

[welasharon]

I did my treatments a week apart or so. I don't think there is any great science to it really. LOL
sharon

 

[Judy]

Let this old nurse explain a little thing to you that might come in handy. Ointments are mostly petroleum jelly, better known as Vaseline. Neosporin ointment has 3 antibiotics mixed into the vaseline. Anything that's a cream is not a vaseline base, it's a different vehicle that is designed to disappear and not leave an oily or greasy residue. So if you were to put Neosporin ointment on the legs she'd be getting the coating she needs to heal plus some antibiotic action that might be helpful if there are any open wounds after you scrub the scales (which is a good idea as the mites are under the scales.) Also, don't worry about whether the Neosporin has pain reliever in it, as the pain reliever is not a "caine" drug. However, never put anything on a chicken that has a "caine" drug in it, such as licodaine, benzocaine, cetacaine -- you get the idea. Chickens are very sensitive to these drugs and can actually die from a little too much.

Once you've done the initial scrub and treatment, you should be able to just just wipe her with whatever oil you're using. I've read a couple of weeks and I've read a couple of months. I think you'll be able to tell when she is free of the mites. Don't forget to retreat in a couple of weeks to get the hatching eggs.

Eprinex pour on, a cattle wormer, will kill them, too, as well as most worms, but since money is an issue I don't imagine you will go this route. Commonly you have to buy a 250 ml bottle which is around $40, and the dose is 0.5 ml for large fowl, dropped on the back of the neck. If, however, you happen to have a friend who has cattle....

And. as others have said, good for you for rescuing this little girl!