Rhode Island Red bantam not well.

[Gazzy Jones]

I'm new to keeping chickens and love this website. it's been very helpful to a newbie.

I have four bantams and my fave the Rhode Island Red (as seen when healthy in my profile pic) is now looking rather ill. She's lost a lot of weight has a pale face and comb and is pulling her neck feathers out.


There were definitely a number of red mites in their coop so after battling against them for a couple of weeks I gave up and bought a new plastic easy clean coop which I've been cleaning every three days as well as dusting with DE. All birds dusted every 10 days with DE too. No sign of mites in coop or on birds now but still no real improvement in the sick chucky. The other three birds don't seem to be affected.

I've dewormed the mini flock using flubenvet.

She seems to be eating and drinking well and is walking around as per normal but she looks pale and has pulled a lot of feathers out around her neck. She also has yellow skin where she's pulled feathers out, not sure if that's normal? I've attached a pic of her if anyone has any other ideas I could try?

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. DE is not that useful with a mite out break. Permethrin dust (used in gardening) applied ever 7 days may help to irradicate your mites. Mites cause anemia, so I would try to find a good poultry vitamin/mineral supplement to give her. Probiotic powder in her food or water may be useful to promote beneficial intestinal bacteria, but I would feed her some egg and increase her feed protein to 20%. Chick starter, flock raiser, and game bird feeds contain higher protein levels. You could also feed her liver, meat, and low sodium tuna, but I believe those are against the law to feed in the UK. Yellow skin can be a sign of liver disease, but I don't know if that is her problem. Sometimes other chickens will "groom" each other pulling out the feathers, and molting tends to start around the neck if she is old enough for that.

 

[Gazzy Jones]

Thank you very much.

Can I spray Permethrin dust onto a chicken, or just around their coop?

She is an old bird but we're going into winter and it seems an odd time to start her molting,

i will try adding more protein to her diet. I do give her lots of black sunflower seed which I thought were protein dense.

Many Thanks
G

 

[Eggcessive]

Permethrin comes in dust or 10% liquid for spraying, and both can be applied to the chicken or the coop. Sunflower seed doesn't have as much protein as chicken feed, but has much more than scratch grains. It averages to be 12% protein, while layer feed is 16%, chick starter/grower and flock raiser about 20%, and gamebird feed can be 24-26% protein.