Hello, I have a rooster who's about 2 years old. He's always looked and behaved as if he's in good health. But I'd read that feather-footed chickens can be prone to health issues, like infections, and his feet have sometimes looked really weird - not smooth like the hens' feet, but bumpy here or there, and sometimes with a redness where a feather (only 1 or maybe 2, not many) should have erupted or did erupt. I've noticed this a couple times, sometimes after lots of rain like we've had in OK this summer, but then his feet would look much better, and some feathers would emerge. However, now I wonder whether he's got scaly leg mites. His scales, which are naturally wider across than my hens' scales, have been raised and not flush against the tops of his feet like theirs, for a long time (yet their feet have never changed appearance, which is why I also thought maybe this too was genetic or something, since scaly leg mites would be passed along to them too...). Does anyone have experience with feathered feet and issues like these? Also, if he does have scaly leg mites, I'd treat them with gasoline (controversial, I know, but it would also work very quickly, and is advocated on at least 2 Vet University sites); but if he does have a sore which is open, I'm sure that would hurt him. Any ideas about that? Thank you very much.
