Is this normal?

[specklesmom]

Is this color comb and all the little scab like "stuff" on the faces of our older girls normal? Our three old hens have had problems with scaley leg mites and I'm wondering if the lack of color in their combs and kind of gunk bits on their faces are a problem. They have always been kept separately from our five younger girls who have nice red, cleaner combs and faces. My older face certainly has aged, so maybe that is all that is happening with the elderly hens.....I've used "Nu-Stock" a combination of mineral oil, sulfur and pine oil on their legs, which seemed to work previously. Any other suggestions for the scaley leg mites?

 

[_-Captain BRM-_]

I do think the older they get the more worn down their bodies become just like us. I have had some 4 and 5 year old hens in the flock and they don't tend to have bright red combs as they did in their younger years

 

[arwoon]

Sometimes they have tiny scabs on their comb from flies

 

[Eggcessive]

It may just be dry skin. It doesn’t look like favus or scaly face mites to me, but I may be wrong. You can safely put plain vaseline on the face and comb if you suspect scaly face mites to smother them. Miconazole cream is a good treatment for favus.

 

[specklesmom]

Thanks for the responses! Plain vaseline sounds simple. Maybe I should be doing that on their legs as well.....We've ordered a new small coop for these older girls as their current home is ancient and falling apart. I realized a couple of weeks ago that there had been flies in there, although we'd only had problems with mosquitoes. The old coop is very difficult to access for spraying or dusting. I look forward to burning it! We'd hoped to move them in with the young girls in the new mobile coop my husband built but I don't want to expose the younger hens to mites or whatever.....