Pullet with bloody feather shafts along side of foot ect...

[Chickenaddict]

1) What type of bird , age and weight. - 10 month old Silver laced bantam cochin pullet, approx 1lb 6 oz

2) What is the behavior, exactly.- Super broody and has been for over 3 weeks. I noticed she was looking a bit pale but otherwise acting like a crazy broody

3) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.- Yes bleeding on the base of the feathers along the side of both feet, folicles look swollen and irritated. She also has sores and scabs all over her legs and belly.

4) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.-I have no idea, she has been sitting in a nest for weeks, she does get up and eat,poo, dustbathe every day on her own

5) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.- I put all my broodies on non medicated chick starter. fresh clean water is always available

6) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc. Definately typical broody poop, totally normal

7) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?- I soaked her feet in a diluted betadine, epsom salt and warm water for 10 minutes and scrubbed the dried blood off, then put triple antibiotic ointment on her feet and legs, I will be giving her a bath later tonight and do the anitbiotic on her feet and legs again as well as wrap them in vetwrap to keep infection out

8 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?- Treat myself, I can't afford a vet or I would have been there 5 minutes ago

9) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help. - See pics below (sorry some are blurry and or bright)

10) Describe the housing/bedding in use- clean pine shavings mixed with DE

I went outside to watch the kids run in the yard and noticed my broody hen looking a bit pale So i picked her up and noticed right away her feet were covered in blood coming from the feather folicles along the side of both feet. Upon further inspection I noticed scabby areas on both legs right where the leg joint is as well as in various places under her belly. Her crop is totally empty and her skin is looking really pale. I noticed a few mites, I just treated them for a second time last week, gutted the whole coop and dusted and sprayed everything, The dust was for cracks and crevices and I sprayed the birds with adams flea and tick spray with IGR (said to do it again in 10 days so this last time was 10 days after the first round). I am about to run to fleet farm to get ivermectin pour on due to the ongoing issue I have had this year with the mites. These don't look like regular chicken mites, they look like little specks of pepper and seem to thrive in the pine shavings rather then on the chickens. In fact I am not sure they are mites at all. I would like to know if the scabs could be from these bugs or excessive treatments for mites I have had to go thru with them? Right now she is in tne house away from the flock, eating and drinking like a normal chicken. She is not itching or grooming herself exessively like they do when they have the chicken mites. I hadn't noticed any scabs or anything abnormal last week so this is recent

Scabs on her belly, this is just a few areas, it looks really bad

 

[silkiechicken]

I'd just keep the wounds clean. The legs just look irritated like almost every other heavy feather footed breed I've seen. The one bleeding feather is probably a broken pin feather which can happen on that type of leg feather.

First and foremost though, she is probably losing energy and vitality by being broody. If she has been sitting on an empty nest for weeks, best break her from it and get her up and moving. That should solve her issues in time because she will be eating like the rest and cairing for herself instead of trying to hatch eggs/air.

You could also check for potential pests in the nest that could be bugging her and causing her to peck.

 

[Chickenaddict]

Even tho she is broody because she doesn't have any eggs to sit on she has been up and about all day every day. Today is the first day I noticed her crop wasn't full. I give all my broodies scrambled eggs every other day to add extra protein seeing as they don't eat as much as if they weren't broody, she eats like a champ.
I checked her nest and had recently got these new easy pick pine shavings (extra fine grade) for the nests. I dipped my hand in the pine shavings that were in her nest and my hands were covered in little tiny black bugs. I just cleaned out the nests and everything last week so could it have been in these new pine shavings? Could that be the cause of her sores and scabs under her belly? I plan to run out to get the ivermectin pour on tomorrow morning and treat the whole flock that way since it seems to be a loosing battle with the permetherine powder and sprays. Can I still use the ivermectin even tho I just treated them last week with the adams apray? I am wondering if she isn't having some sort of skin reaction because of the treatments. These bugs are strange and I had posted about them a few weeks ago and still haven't figured out what the heck they are. It has to be these new pine shavings.....


ETA is that ivermectin safe for chicks 2 weeks old and up too? My whole flock is bantam size except one hen who is medium so what would the dosage be? TIA