scaley leg

[oswald808]

My rooster has scaley leg and i've been treating him with Nu-Stock. Had a question for everyone that has dealt with scaley leg before. How long did it take for the scales to look normal again?

The Nu-Stock seems to work because he doesn't peck at his feet anymore and days that i forgot to reapply didn't bother him either. So far I've been treating him for about 3 weeks.

I could post a pic of his feet if needed...

 

[StephieSky]

Hi Os
The short answer is that it could take months.

If you could post a photo that really would help. Some are pretty awful ( I have one that was crippled by it when I got her ) and others can be lightly infested with relatively little damage.

* By the way - scaly leg mites have a life cycle of 1 - 2 weeks and lay their eggs inside of your bird under the scales. You want to keep those legs covered for at least 4 weeks.

 

[oswald808]

 

[Fancychooklady]

Wow, they are some pretty impressive spurs. I use Vicks chest rub, it's a bit messy but seems to do the trick. Not all of the scales will go back, depends on the extent of damage. Keep doing what your doing, his feet look like they are on the mend.

 

[oswald808]

when he first got it i took him to the vet and they had him on ivermectin...it started to get better but when they up'd the dosage it didn't seem to help.
so i decided to use other methods, that stuff was $$$...the Nu-Stock seems to work well, i like it because it's fairly all natural and it actaully got him to stop pecking at his feet

funny though how he got it considering he's practically a house chicken and the hens outside weren't affected at all

ya his spurs are quite long but i don't think i could trim them cuz i'm too OCD lol and they don't seem to hinder him in any way

 

[StephieSky]

Hey
Here's what I was told about my 1 bird who has less invasive scaly mites than yours does. 8 months to a year.
You can gently brush his legs with an extra soft bristle toothbrush to help unseat the destroyed scales by reducing the build up. If you pry or force them off you'll further damage his legs and may never see a normal scale on that damaged spot again. So you have to be careful to soak his legs to soften things up - then brush them thoroughly but with care - let them dry out and then recover.
My bird is showing very slight gaps beneath her scales - I'm applying Vaseline to soften the scales. I haven't seen any of them start to lay down yet. I'm sorry.
My other bird may never again develop scales on some parts of her feet and legs.

The mites are microscopic. You can't even see them with the naked eye. They drill thousands of little tunnels in the skin beneath the scales and set up colonies in the skin. This invasion is detected by the immune system. So your birds immune system reacts with a cell build up that attempts to fight off and block the invasion of the mites - thickening the layers of skin under the scales. The mites lay eggs and start hatching and drilling until they've multiplied. This goes on for a while until the scales become raised from the destruction and detrius thats building up beneath them. So you still have a bunch of things going on even without live mites - tunnels, thickened skin, a build up of mite waste - dead mites and detrius from hatching mites. It can take a while for all of that to sort itself out.

And yes he does have impressive spurs! I was staring at those lol

 

[Fancychooklady]

I have an old rescue hen, her legs were so bad with the things that I think she would have been crippled by them. I tried everything, WD 40, cooking oil, flints oil, Vaseline and Vicks . Not sure if one or a combination of all finally cured her. Some of her scales are still raised, but the mites are gone. I have been trialling spray cooking oil with some success . It's a lot easier than painting it on. I'm not familiar with nu stock, but it looks as though its working.

 

[oswald808]

they seem to have only infected his outside toes and the tips of the middle, those are the only ones that seem to look raised...

i used the nu-stock on a cut i got the other day at the beach, worked wonders

i brush his feet when he gets his weekly bath

 

[Fancychooklady]

Ah, beach, were just going into winter but I can't complain , it has been very mild for this time of the year. I think I will google this nu stock stuff.

 

[oswald808]

your local feed store should have it