Hello! So I have a skittish chicken that does not like to be held. For this reason it often gets excluded from the weekly heath checks that I do on all of my birds. Today she was the only one left inside so I picked her up (witch she never lets me do) and noticed that her legs looked VERY dirty. It did not suprise me because I never get to clean her. I scrubbed at her legs and feet for a long time but after they were dirt free the still looked dirty. 2 scales are missing and the skin where they should be is purple. There is one scale at the joint to her toes that is sticking outward because the skin underneath it is red and very swollen. I turned her upside down and saw a small black thing that looks like bumble foot. I will have pictures of all of these things as soon as my phone charges so I can take pictures. Thank you for all of your help! -G
Those birds have to be plucked off the roost at night for their health checks. I can't get close enough to pick up any of my birds during the day. If it is scaly leg mite, brush roosts and chicken's legs once a month with a mixture of one part kerosene to two parts linseed oil. Ivermectin also works. Bumblefoot can be difficult to cure. If she's not limping, just clean it well and soak it daily in an Epsom salt bath and see what happens.
UPDATE: she has started to limp and her poop is the consistency of water. She is leisurely and doesn't fight me picking her up anymore. Another chicken has started hiccuping, is this related? Their diet has been the same except yesterday I gave them a little bit of this: Her Foot: Her: Her Blood Sister's Foot (This is what the normal color is): Her Poop(hard to see, it is basicly water but there is other poop around it.): Thanks! -G
Today 2 of the other chickens are poofed up and not walking around much. The hiccups are gone though. The coldest that it gets here is 32, and that is only at midnight, It is 45ish during the day. At night they have a heat lamp above the perches, so they do not get that cold. -G
