Scaly Leg Mites - Need Best / Easiest / Quickest Solution - Scaley

[Beekissed]

After reading some of these latest posts, sheesh, all this fancy-schmancy oils and STUFF you all are using, peeps, plain old vaseline and a SOFT toothbrush is all you need.
All you need to do is SMOTHER the buggers and it kills them. Be diligent about RE-applying every other day and they will be gone..
NU-STOCK really is a one time application....I learned the hard way on that one..

applied more than once...OUCHIE, sorta burned his legs... my bad

I've used vaseline and it didn't work. Hence the Nustock. Now, I've never had any legs burned with the Nustock...and this is the first time I've heard of that reaction happening, so maybe your bird was just hypersensitive to the pine tar in the NS?

 

[froggiesheins]

I've used vaseline and it didn't work.  Hence the Nustock.  Now, I've never had any legs burned with the Nustock...and this is the first time I've heard of that reaction happening, so maybe your bird was just hypersensitive to the pine tar in the NS? 

Yes, thats possible, it made the problems worse in that bird, so I stopped using it altogether on chickens... Intersting that vaseline did not work...now I do ALOT of scrubbing to get the goobers out from under the scales, would that make a difference?

 

[Beekissed]

It could. I don't usually scrub legs if I can help it...just do a treatment. If it doesn't work in one swat, I consider it a fail.

 

[Summer98]

Well we were doing castor oil with a toothbrush throughout the fall months and it is still not 100%. We were getting tired of doing it. I wish one treatment were enough. But perhaps I was missing spots when applying with a toothbrush. I figure if I dunk them, I can't miss any spots. We'll see.

 

[Beekissed]

I'd say the toothbrush may have irritated the tissues and left them too raw and open? I'd say one time with the toothbrush, gently, to move out any grime on the scales would have been enough and then let the castor oil coat the area and then no washing it off after that, just reapplying it every 2 wks or so.

 

[LaLa Chickie]

I put on surgical gloves and poured the Castor Oil on the legs and worked it in between the toes up the legs, around the butt area under the wings and anywhere else deemed necessary as the Lice / mites ran...I left it on and the next day they were suffocated. I left it for at least 10days, then sprayed with Poultry Protection and all their feathers are beautiful. They look so silly, but eventually they dirt bath it all off. One of them I gave a bath with Dawn dish soap to clean her up and then sprayed with the Poultry Protector...she's all pretty and fluffy and laying eggs ... love the Castor OIl treatment, sticks to everything...

 

[One Chick Two]

This was Sir Banty when we found him this past June, age unknown, but he had HUGE spurs, so we know he was at least 1 1/2 years old. He'd been beaten up by his brothers, and had lived mostly in a cage. His legs had moderate scaly mites, were badly thickened, bleeding up at the hocks and had some deep cracks. His legs were unbelieveably stiff, like tree limbs, poor guy.


This was a closeup of his legs then: The whitish yellow was the raised scales. His toes did not bend easily then.



Sorry, technical difficulty…

We dipped Sir Banty daily for a month, in mineral oil, then rubbed it in, concentrating the rubbing in on the worst, most raised areas and deepest cracks. After that, treatment became every few days, then a few times a month for a few months and still, just on occasion. I think the treatment actually worked quickly, but we wanted to be absolutely sure.

Didn't ever use a toothbrush, as we felt at first he might have tender areas like at the hock, where he was bleeding. And then we just plain forgot about using a brush on his legs. After a short time, we found dipping his legs in DE after mineral oil treatment made him happier-, as he wasn't so oily and high stepping, and the oil then didn't transfer onto his feathers or the roost. Also, I feel it made the treatment a bit "oily/muddy" which coated on his legs overall better I believe, having done treatments both ways we preferred DE afterward.

In this photo in July, you can see Sir Banty had been treated the day before, and a majority of the DE had absorbed into the mineral oil. He'd had also lost his two top curling tail feathers- for whatever reason.


This photo was taken in the beginning of October, four months later. His legs were well on the way to healing. He still had a few round patches of old dead crust left to still slough off. His new leg skin was dark, shiny and flexible. He had few small cracks left, and his legs became thinner and more shapely and much more flexible. Even those spurs and toenails looked better. We still treated him occasionally, but we actual believed by then the mites were long since expired.


Here is Sir Banty now:




He'd been recently treated in this photo, so there was a slight whitish film still left... but his legs are looking good, and you can see there are much shiner, and more shapely than they were in the beginning of treatment. His mobility is excellent, and he has very little in the way of feet cracks now. He seems happy.

If anyone decides to dip in oil, I recommend it. Just be very consistent, as healing the scales takes a good long while- there is no quick fix to healing time. I do recommend dipping in DE afterward- it did seem to help, and definitely made him more comfortable.

 

[Beekissed]

Poor thing!!! That's a pretty bad case of mites!

 

[One Chick Two]

Quote:

Poor thing!!! That's a pretty bad case of mites!

Yes, he used to have them pretty bad, thank goodness that is past.

If you see my previous, post, I've updated about the process of how we had treated his legs.

 

[Beekissed]

He looks great now! Great job!!!

Did you remove those spurs to give him a little more mobility? They say you can place a piece of potato on the spurs for a day(can't imagine a bird that would leave it on) and then just twist them off with the pliers. Sounds gruesome but I think I'd think about it if my bird's spurs were that large in proportion to his body. Some folks just soak them in warm oil prior to removal, so your bird would already be used to the oil treatment.

They will grow back.