Question about chickens & oil

[Mrs. K]

Could you have feather mites - they cause damage to feathers.

 

[aart]

Wouldn't that just give mites and worms immunity?

Using pesticides as a preventative can possibly cause resistance.
best to only treat when pests are present and positively ID'd.

We feed our chickens oregano and garlic every month to kill worms

Neither of those will do much...and garlic can cause anemia.

 

[Everose]

I've never heard of using oil externally to fix feathers. Dave Holderread uses one parts cat food to one parts duck food to give his show ducks healthy and beautiful plumage before show but not sure if that would work for chickens, and it's not a long term feed

 

[Polish_kid2020]

Okay
So I probably should have said this first but we started giving our show birds ivermectin once a month in January 2021 because we have a big show coming up around the end of March so we didn't want the birds to have mites.
( the dosage I give them is one drop per bird)

 

[Polish_kid2020]

Okay
So I probably should have said this first but we started giving our show birds ivermectin once a month in January 2021 because we have a big show coming up around the end of March so we didn't want the birds to have mites.
( the dosage I give them is one drop per bird)

We didn't want them to have mites because the show we go to disqualifies birds with mites and all other birds you bring.

 

[Polish_kid2020]

I'm guessing he paces back and forth along just one side of his coop (either the side with the door, or the side toward the hens.) Maybe you could make that side of something smooth--like glass or plexiglass or even smooth wood--to avoid problems like this in future.

Since you say you're building a bigger coop, you might not want to bother changing the current coop now, but if he's rubbing his feathers while trying to get out, you could have the same problem in the new bigger coop.

Yep you guessed it that's exactly what he does!

we are going to try a different brand of chicken wire in the new coop to see if that works better.

 

[Cattle dog Mom]

Yep you guessed it that's exactly what he does!

we are going to try a different brand of chicken wire in the new coop to see if that works better.

I would make the wall solid so he has no reason to pace back and forth in the first place. Wire is wire, no one kind is better than the other as far as ruining feathers or not.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Just DO NOT try this........

No you didn't...lol I'm so proud of you right now.

 

[paloozaparty]

You can spray on Afrosheen!!! Can you see in my profile pic, that we're at the National Western Stockshow? We ended up having to bathe our chickens (namely the rooster) only the night before the show (we've NEVER shown before, and did NOT know what we were doing)... I did find only THREE youtube videos--after 10 hours of searching, that showed what to do to bathe your chicken before a show. Anyway, the stages were to bathe in 3 tubs--first one, gentle soap (I used a bit of Dr. Teals Lavender bath soap), then a water rinse, then a vinegar and water soak. Take them out, dry them off with towel, the hairblow dry them (not too hot of air). Once completely dry, we applied coconut oil to all of their fleshy parts (not into their ear holes, but around). and their shanks to toes, and on beak! We also carefully sprayed Afrosheen across their top feathers to tailfeathers. For first timers, we won Best in Variety with the rooster (in my profile pic) and placed 3rd with our other hen. There were 700 birds We didn't know that we should have bathed our birds 4 days before the show--regardless, the Afrosheen worked GREAT. As for blood feathers, you can put "styptic" powder on the broken part--and/or baking soda, and YES, you can rub coconut oil on their skin, under feathers--it actually helps kill mites as well as moisturize.

As for video uploads, you could upload your video to YouTube, then share the link in here, by clicking on the Media button, which is next to the "gif" add button in this box.

I'm attaching pics of the rooster at the show, covered in coconut oil and Afrosheen. And an animation of bathing the hen. Chickens LOVE baths, LOVE being hairblown dried, LOVE having coconut oil massaged onto their bodies, and PS, they do NOT poop while you're holding them. It's a mystery side effect of being held!

 

[Polish_kid2020]

You can spray on Afrosheen!!! Can you see in my profile pic, that we're at the National Western Stockshow? We ended up having to bathe our chickens (namely the rooster) only the night before the show (we've NEVER shown before, and did NOT know what we were doing)... I did find only THREE youtube videos--after 10 hours of searching, that showed what to do to bathe your chicken before a show. Anyway, the stages were to bathe in 3 tubs--first one, gentle soap (I used a bit of Dr. Teals Lavender bath soap), then a water rinse, then a vinegar and water soak. Take them out, dry them off with towel, the hairblow dry them (not too hot of air). Once completely dry, we applied coconut oil to all of their fleshy parts (not into their ear holes, but around). and their shanks to toes, and on beak! We also carefully sprayed Afrosheen across their top feathers to tailfeathers. For first timers, we won Best in Variety with the rooster (in my profile pic) and placed 3rd with our other hen. There were 700 birds We didn't know that we should have bathed our birds 4 days before the show--regardless, the Afrosheen worked GREAT. As for blood feathers, you can put "styptic" powder on the broken part--and/or baking soda, and YES, you can rub coconut oil on their skin, under feathers--it actually helps kill mites as well as moisturize.

As for video uploads, you could upload your video to YouTube, then share the link in here, by clicking on the Media button, which is next to the "gif" add button in this box.

I'm attaching pics of the rooster at the show, covered in coconut oil and Afrosheen. And an animation of bathing the hen. Chickens LOVE baths, LOVE being hairblown dried, LOVE having coconut oil massaged onto their bodies, and PS, they do NOT poop while you're holding them. It's a mystery side effect of being held!

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Thank you for sharing all of your experiences at your fair and congratulations! I have had many experiences at fairs while showing my birds at my most recent fair my barred rock got reserved best bird of show and my polish hen got best of her class! I normally bathe my birds in a normal soap and water bathe once a month or so to keep mites away and to keep them clean, I use the vinegar dip before I Take them to fairs to make sure there are no mites. Unfortunately my polish rooster ended up getting disqualified because he has side sprig ( extra bumps on his comb).