(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens? Yes, we are very new. We took over the neighbors flock around Thanksgiving 2014. Some of the chickens are quite old and we knew that because the neighbor told us they were. (2) How many chickens do you have right now? 13 although we started with 16. 3 died within the first 3 weeks. (3) What breeds do you have? Not sure. Some black and quite large, some brown and some white/cream. (4) How did you find out about BackYardChickens.com? Searching for help on how to build a coop. What they need and how to care for chickens. (5) What are some of your other hobbies? Gardening, quilting, hunting, camping, outdoors (6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share. We have 2 grown children, 2 Yorkies, we both work, one in maintenance and one in computers. We have learned a lot so far. Our daughter works at the humane society and knows a little about a lot of things. She helped me look each chicken over after we lost the 3. We couldn't figure out what in the world we could be doing wrong. We found what looked like lice and they had scaly leg mites. The rooster could barely walk and the neighbor said he thought it was because he was old. So we treated their body with Seven dust and sprayed their legs with Neem oil. Around Christmas, one of the hens started limping. We looked over her feet really well and could see there was an issue with the back toe. It looked broken and was going in the wrong direction. We also noticed black spots on the bottoms of both of her feet. We started treating the toe and the bottoms of her feet with triple antibiotic ointment. The toe cleared up enough for us to actually see it. Our daughter spoke with a vet friend that said we might have to cut the toe off. A week or so later, we determined that it wasn't getting better, that it actually looked like it was dying. We cut 1/2 of her toe off and pulled out the bumble foot spots. We didn't cut anything out, it pretty much pulled out with pliers. We packed them full of triple antibiotic ointment and wrapped them up. We repeatedly cleaned them up, and changed her bandages. Today, she looks great. She has become quite friendly. She'll eat out of our hand and doesn't run away when we pick her up. She's quite the talker too!! Sometimes I have to holler at her because she's so loud with her talking when I'm cleaning the coop. When our daughter talked with the vet about her toe, he said to dilute Ivomec and spray their legs instead of the neem oil. We did that for about 4 weeks. Soaking the roosters legs and using a toothbrush to clean off the nasty scales. We haven't eaten any eggs yet because of all of the stuff we've been using. I'm glad it's winter and were only getting 3 a day. Now I'm reading about worms. I haven't seen any, but I see Ivomec treats worms too. My question: Will the diluted Ivomec sprayed on their legs also kill any worms they might potentially have? I'd sure like to get these chickens healthy by spring so we can stop treating and start eating eggs. I'm not ready to have chickens for meat. I don't think I can do it yet. I've already named some of them!! I guess we're learning on senior citizens and will one day have a younger flock.
Old chickens can just die with no obvious signs. Their age with some underlying issues plus the stress of moving was probably enough to push them over the edge. Mites, scaly leg mites and worms will kill. Check under to roosts. With some worms you can clearly see them in the poop. Your daughter should also be able to do a fecal sample. Are you using the pour on Ivermec? Don't quote me on it, but I wouldn't think that there would be enough absorbed through the legs to treat internal worms. I would take 1 ml, spread the feathers on the back and squirt it directly on the skin. If you are using a horse ivermectin dewormer paste, I spread one 250# portion on a slice of bread than feed it to the flock. You will do more good than harm just just going ahead and deworming them now. You can also just use Vaseline on the legs to smother the mites if you feel you have overdone the Ivermec (4 weeks is a long time) You need to strip the coop, treat it with Sevin and than rebed it. Make sure they have a nice fresh dust bath to help fight the mites. Wood ash or just nice dry dirt/sand work well. Give them some high protein treats (meal worms, fish, scrambled eggs, flaxseed, hamburger...) to help with the new feather growth.
Welcome to BYC. I recommend using Safeguard liquid goat wormer or valbazen liquid cattle/sheep wormer for worming chickens. Ivomec products are ineffective treating worms in poultry due to its overuse as a miteacide. Poultry worms have become resistant to ivomec products. I use valbazen as a first time wormer, it slowly kills worms over several days preventing toxic dead worm overload. Valbazen kills all known types of worms that chickens can get, including flukes. The safeguard liquid goat wormer is a good wormer as well, but it wont get rid of tapeworms in chickens.
You've gotten some very good advice and it sure helps having a daughter with the right kind of knowledge. I hope you have turned the corner with your flock and can expect better experiences in the future. Welcome to Backyard chickens.
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help. Hope you future experiences are better. I agree with the advice already given.
Hi Glad you could join the flock! Great advice there for you so I will just "Hi" Wishing you the very best of luck and hope you enjoy BYC, I am sure you will
