Leg mites

[Hatchinmama]

I need some advice and education on Scaly leg mites. I have the opportunity to adopt 7 chickens from a local lady. However she says that one has crusty feet due to scaly leg mites. She said she has been treating it and only the one chicken has it. I have never dealt with this before. Am I putting my flock at risk bringing them here? Is there a chance the others from her flock are also affected? Thank you!

 

[Isadora]

If all of her birds are together, they will all have them. She must just have one chicken that's at a more severe stage.
If you do bring them home, they should be isolated from your other chickens until they are fully under control.

 

[nuthatched]

35 day quarentine and treat the mites with a mix of permethrine and vaseline.

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

If all of her birds are together, they will all have them.

Not necessarily. Scaly leg mites live on the bird full time and don't survive long off the host so they don't spread as fast and easily as other mites and lice. It won't hurt to cover all the birds legs in vaseline, but generally I only treat birds that have raised scales/crust. It would be a good idea to check and/or treat everyone for body mites and lice which do spread quickly.

A month-long quarantine is always advisable for bringing in new birds. Scaly leg mites aren't a big problem imo and I wouldn't be worried about that, but there are other diseases, viruses, etc that the owner may be unaware of that could affect your birds. If they've ever had a respiratory illness they are likely still carriers even if they don't look sick. They stress of being relocated and adding new birds to flock reduces the birds' immune systems so the new and old flocks are more susceptible to falling ill from both old and new pathogens. By keeping the new birds quarantined you can see if any old illnesses pop up before introducing them to your flock, though if you want to be 100% sure they can't infect your flock you need to be quite strict with biosecurity practices (keeping the birds distanced, changing boots and clothes between the groups, etc) which not everyone has the set up or time to do.

 

[Isadora]

Not necessarily. Scaly leg mites live on the bird full time and don't survive long off the host so they don't spread as fast and easily as other mites and lice. It won't hurt to cover all the birds legs in vaseline, but generally I only treat birds that have raised scales/crust. It would be a good idea to check and/or treat everyone for body mites and lice which do spread quickly.

You do you of course, but that sounds crazy to me. I wouldn't want to take the chance that other birds had it but the scales weren't raised enough enough to be noticeable. Then I would be treating it way longer than I needed to than if I had just treated everyone at the beginning.

 

[AC56]

Not necessarily. Scaly leg mites live on the bird full time and don't survive long off the host so they don't spread as fast and easily as other mites and lice. It won't hurt to cover all the birds legs in vaseline, but generally I only treat birds that have raised scales/crust. It would be a good idea to check and/or treat everyone for body mites and lice which do spread quickly.

A month-long quarantine is always advisable for bringing in new birds. Scaly leg mites aren't a big problem imo and I wouldn't be worried about that, but there are other diseases, viruses, etc that the owner may be unaware of that could affect your birds. If they've ever had a respiratory illness they are likely still carriers even if they don't look sick. They stress of being relocated and adding new birds to flock reduces the birds' immune systems so the new and old flocks are more susceptible to falling ill from both old and new pathogens. By keeping the new birds quarantined you can see if any old illnesses pop up before introducing them to your flock, though if you want to be 100% sure they can't infect your flock you need to be quite strict with biosecurity practices (keeping the birds distanced, changing boots and clothes between the groups, etc) which not everyone has the set up or time to do.

Hi, we stupidly rehomed a rooster yesterday, he was with our flock for about 30 min before we isolated him. He has severe scaly legs, which we never seen before. He wasn't in the coop but on same ground with hens. What are the risk of contamination during that time?
What to do now? And how to disinfect the isolator after he is out of there? Thank you.

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

Hi, we stupidly rehomed a rooster yesterday, he was with our flock for about 30 min before we isolated him. He has severe scaly legs, which we never seen before. He wasn't in the coop but on same ground with hens. What are the risk of contamination during that time?
What to do now? And how to disinfect the isolator after he is out of there? Thank you.

I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. From my experience and what I've read SLMs really don't spread quickly. I adopted a hen that had some and she lived and roosted with my other girls for over a week before I noticed her scales getting crusty and treated her, and none of my other birds ever got them, and I only bothered to clean the roosting area and nest boxes with permethrin spray. If you want to slather everyone's legs with vaseline just in case that's fine, but it gets a little messy, and I think you might as well wait to see signs of mites before bothering to treat.

 

[AC56]

So when I can let rooster out of quarantine after mite treatment? I sprayed him with DW40 once and applied vaseline 3 times. Legs obviously still look bad as scales not renewed yet. Its been 2 weeks since we got him. When can I let him join the rest?