Is this scaly leg mites, or are these chickens just old?

[Wyorp Rock]

museum director

vet keeps telling them we can't block off the rafters with chicken wire because they will hurt themselves on it somehow

It boils down to the Director and the consulting vet. Follow the advice of the vet.

Pull the foot open more and see if it's Bumble or if it's just debris that has wedged into the folds of the foot. Hard to tell, could just be a poop ball.

Loss of feathers on the vent could be a combination of picking, lice/mites - if you are finding parasites, treat per the consulting vet's recommendation.

Good luck!

 

[KaseySnow]

Update!

The park director wants us to go ahead and try the warm soak + Vaseline treatment for the mites and permethrin/poultry dust for the lice first before contacting the vet. So no vet insight yet, just winging this (no pun intended ) on my own based on the advice I've received here so far!

The treatment stuff all just arrived today and I am hoping to get some help slathering chicken legs sometime in the next week on a warm evening. We will be doing a big coop clean out to replace coop bedding and spray the interior of the coop/roost with permethrin sometime later this month. The permethrin is mostly for the lice, but I read it can help with mites too. I hope it's okay to start treating the scaly leg mites now even though it's still the old bedding. I read they are pretty slow to re-infest and spread, so I hope the girls can hold out.

I've been trying to do research on BYC about how often to treat with Vaseline and have found everything from daily for 3-4 days to once and then again 10 days later to get any eggs that hadn't hatched yet. Any tips? I've never done this before. Not sure if I can do it daily on 10 hens who aren't used to being handled. That sounds like an all day job. May have to just do it once now and again in 10 days and hope for the best.

Someone also said you could spray permethrin on the legs first before Vaseline to ensure more death and fewer treatments. Is that still advisable? It was also suggested to scrub gently with a toothbrush to loosen the debris before applying the Vaseline. Dunno how this helps, maybe exposes more mites? Encourages faster healing and scale regrowth?

Should I soak, scrub, spray, and slather? What a catchphrase.

Sorry, I know this is a lot of questions. I just want to make sure I do the best thing for them.

Last question: A couple of the girls have feathered feet and I am worried about how much gunk their legs are going to pick up being covered in Vaseline since they spend all day in a dirt floor run and have deep litter pine shavings in their coop. Any advice on that? I'm going to try to apply it at the end of the day just before they go roost, so hopefully it'll be on there long enough to suffocate the mites overnight. They roost in the rafters so I unfortunately can't reach them to go do it at night when they are asleep.

I appreciate any and all insight anyone has to offer on any of these questions, thank so much!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Don't over complicate it.
You visit everyday or every couple of days?
If you are able to tell the birds apart, split them up into 2-3 groups. Not sure how many there are, but say if there are 10 birds, do 5 one night, then 5 another or split up even further if needed.

In the photos, the birds don't seem to have a lot of "debris" or "crust" on the legs which can be a build up of mite poop. You can do the soaking to help soften the scales but I don't think they need a scrubbing unless they look really dirty. The scrub is to help remove the crusty stuff. Application of the vaseline, work it up underneath the scales - that's where the SLM are and you want to smother them.

I understand, you can find a lot of different ways to treat and if the caregiver is consistent with what treatment or plan they decide to use it seems they are successful. For me, I would aim on the vaseline application 2X a week since it does wear off, but if 1X a week is all that can be done, then go with that - slow and steady wins the race! (remember consistency)

Feather footed birds it may take longer to get rid of them, just keep working on them.

 

[KaseySnow]

Thanks for the input! I won't worry about scrubbing them then. I'm also glad to hear that it will still be effective even if I can't do it every day. I stop by every few days, but can only really commit to one day a week for this kind of work since I'm pretty busy with the rest of my life. And yes, there are 10 birds.

I blocked the upper rafters off this morning so they will have to roost on the lower bars at night and make for easy grabbing. The plan is to slather them up at night when they are snoozing so they can sit with it on for 8 hours or so. How long does it take the mites to suffocate, I wonder?

 

[KaseySnow]

Update!
Last night we went into the coop and snatched them off of the roost to slather the Vaseline on. Didn't do the permethrin dip this time, just wanted to see how quick the process would be with 10 chickens if we did Vaseline alone. Took about 40 minutes to do them all, so now knowing that we can plan accordingly for next time.

I think next time we'll get a couple more volunteers and a few tubs so we can soak in permethrin first before covering in Vaseline, though I've read you have to let the feet dry before doing Vaseline. How do you let them dry out without rubbing the permethrin off? We have couple of little cat carrier kennels we could put them in maybe.

However, we noticed a dark spot on the pad of feet of our black Ameraucana that could be bumblefoot, though they kind of looked more like a birthmark than a crusty bumble as I'm used to seeing them. Does bumblefoot ever leave a dark mark when it's healed? Could it be healing on its own? It looked smooth. I'll try to get pictures next time, we were both covered in Vaseline and I didn't want to grab my phone.

The Buff Orpington still has that dark spot between her toes, we kinda opened it up and it *sort of* looked like it might be a bumblefoot scab? It's just in a weird place down in the crease between the pad and the toes. Is it possible to get a different foot injury that doesn't turn into a bumble?

The buff brahma that I showed pictures of before *definitely* has a crusty bumble on the bottom of her foot though. Gah!! So now I gotta figure out how to treat that while also treating for scaly leg mites. Was planning on just doing daily warm epsom salt water foot soaks for a week or so. Does covering the bumble in Vaseline hurt the healing process in any way?

Their highest roosting bar is a long piece of wood about 4 feet off the ground, the one below it is 3' and the lowest is 2'. Are these too high still? They recently poured concrete in the coop floor to help with a rat problem we were having and we try to do the deep litter method with pine shavings on top of that, but usually where they land is about 4" of litter depth. Should the litter depth be greater? I really don't want them to keep getting bumbles.