Purple comb on leghorn Help!

[shellybean40]

I have a mixed flock which includes 8 leghorns. They are approximately 8 months old. They lay beautifully,and I love their elegant body shape and large floppy combs. Yesterday, I noticed two of my girls had some purplish color to the back tips of their combs. It felt cold to the touch. They are both in the nest box this morning, laying eggs. All are hungry and active. No other symptoms. I checked their breathing, it is normal. No swollen eyes, or wattles. No one else has this. It has not been very cold here at all. We had one morning of freezing temps, but just for a few hours and then it warmed up. ( we live in south texas) They sleep in a very cozy coop at night, so I doubt it was freezing in there that night.

Should I be concerned??

 

[TinyChickenLady]

Pictures would help

 

[shellybean40]

One more thing, the coop was pretty poopy and we spent a good part of the morning mucking it out, cleaning and replacing all of the shavings. I have been taking care of my Mom, who has cancer and I let the coop go longer than I usually do. It is so much nicer in there now!! Bless their little chicken hearts.

 

[kippy2]

That means they are cold or sick. you have to get her in a warm place or she will die.

 

[shellybean40]

it is 80 degrees here. The low was 59.

 

[UrbanFarmerGreg]

I noticed my leghorn cockerel had his comb turning a bit purplish soon after I got him and decided to watch him to see if he was getting sick... What I noticed was when he was rubbing his beak on the wooden frame of the coop his comb was rubbing on the chicken wire... he seemed perfectly fine and was in good health when I gave him away, I am not allowed to have roosters in my city... So maybe it is just their combs rubbing on the fencing...?

 

[kippy2]

oh because chickens don't like lower than 75 degrees and any higher than 75 degrees

 

[shellybean40]

what lower than 75 degrees?? They have feathers and do great in the winter! I do not think that is true. I do think the heat is really hard on them, but they are more cold hardy than we give them credit for.

 

[ttclan]

I can attest to the cold hardy...we have 4 leghorns and they are our smallest birds...our temps haven't been above 50 in weeks now here in Colorado (dropping even into the teens) and they have done just fine. We haven't even had to heat them yet.

To answer your issue though, that's a new one for me...I would have thought maybe frostbite was starting to set in, but the temps don't match that. Hope someone can give you an answer...have you googled it? Hope all will be well with your gals.

 

[silkiechicken]

You are in quite a warm area! Purple combs is due to lack of blood flow for some reason. That reason I am not sure and if all else is good with them, I would not worry.

That said, our leghorns and large combed roosters would get purplish combs when it got into the 30s at night. However, our birds deal with 75F summer HIGH temps and in growing up in a slightly cooler environment may have smaller combs than a bird who has grown up in a summer high of 100F as their fleshy bits do act quite like a radiator.