PLEASE IDENTIFY CHICKEN'S FOOT AILMENT!

[Kroes nest]

My White Marans has missing/broken feathers from one foot. She also has a bald patch on her chest that has the same broken feather look that the feet feathers have. I haven't seen any of the other hens pecking at her, so I'm wondering if it might be some parasite? Does this look familiar to anyone? Thanks for the help!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi

Welcome To BYC

The missing feathers on the neck look like plucking, watch your flock at night during roosting to see if anyone is plucking the feathers from her neck and feet.

The scales on her feet look fairly good, but if you want you can soak her feet in a warm epsom salts bath to soothe them, then apply some vaseline, coconut oil, A+D ointment, etc. to the feet.

For the neck, you can apply some Blu Kote or Pick No More to help hide the redness and promote healing. Since the feathers are broken off in the foot, she most likely won't get new feathers until she goes through a molt. If she starts limping or has any swelling, then you may need to remove some of the feather shafts from the feet, otherwise I would leave them alone.

Feather picking can be due to not enough space, boredom and sometimes not enough protein in the diet. Evaluate how much coop and run space you have. A general guideline is 4sq ft of coop space per bird and 10sq ft run space per bird.

 

[Kroes nest]

Thank you so much Wyorp Rock.She is one of my newer birds, we added 6 in February. We are going to reconfigure the roosting poles in the coop. I think that is the problem. The new girls want to spend the night in the run so the old girls won't peck them, but I keep moving them inside at night for safety. Yesterday I applied what I had on hand, which was VetX, so we'll see if she looks better today. I'll soak her feet today.

Your imput was helpful!!