Scaly leg mites? Or something else?

[getaclue]

It looks like you have several things going on. The red looks like hormones, and inflammation. It looks to me like there is some feather picking involved, and you are over treating, some of which is counter productive. Has your coop been wet/damp lately? If so, it could be fungal. Start with basics. Isolate him, if you have not already done so. This will enable you to observe whether he's doing all the feather picking, or if it's a flock mate. Next, agitating inflammation only makes it worse, leading to more problems. The scales are not really lifted, so any mite problem is minimal. I would start with either A&D ointment, or any neosporin (without pain relief) triple antibiotic type ointment. Soak the feet for a few minutes in plain, lukewarm water. Don't add soap, or anything else that will cause further inflammation. Dry the feet, and legs, then apply the A&D, or the antibiotic ointment. Do this daily. In 5 - 7 days, there should be very noticeable improvement. Watch him for feather picking. IF in 7 days there is not a significant improvement, I'd get either Monistat 7 cream (for vaginal yeast infection), or Lotrimin type athlete's foot cream with clotrimazole as the active ingredient. Again, soak the feet in plain lukewarm water for a few minutes (this is to help clean them) then apply the antifungal cream. At this point, discontinue using the A&D, or the antibiotic ointment.

 

[coach723]

I had a Brahma roo with legs like that, feathers would get broken off all the time and his legs looked irritated. I would use either neosporin or other triple antibiotic ointment, or coconut oil, something soothing and non-irritating, and then would wrap his legs in co wrap to protect the feathers. Not too tight, just enough to protect the feather shafts, making sure they were wrapped laying in the direction they grew. His legs would look better after a while, until the next go-round with broken feathers. Other feather footed birds I've had did not have the same issue, but with him it was recurrent. No mites, and I don't think the picking happened first, but came after the legs were irritated. I think maybe because roo's being roo's, their activities lend their leg feathers to more abuse.

 

[aart]

No advice, sorry, my BCM cockerel legs are funky too...follicles seem irritated and some feathers are broken.
Maybe @Chooks man would know?

 

[renk777]

It looks like you have several things going on. The red looks like hormones, and inflammation. It looks to me like there is some feather picking involved, and you are over treating, some of which is counter productive. Has your coop been wet/damp lately? If so, it could be fungal. Start with basics. Isolate him, if you have not already done so. This will enable you to observe whether he's doing all the feather picking, or if it's a flock mate. Next, agitating inflammation only makes it worse, leading to more problems. The scales are not really lifted, so any mite problem is minimal. I would start with either A&D ointment, or any neosporin (without pain relief) triple antibiotic type ointment. Soak the feet for a few minutes in plain, lukewarm water. Don't add soap, or anything else that will cause further inflammation. Dry the feet, and legs, then apply the A&D, or the antibiotic ointment. Do this daily. In 5 - 7 days, there should be very noticeable improvement. Watch him for feather picking. IF in 7 days there is not a significant improvement, I'd get either Monistat 7 cream (for vaginal yeast infection), or Lotrimin type athlete's foot cream with clotrimazole as the active ingredient. Again, soak the feet in plain lukewarm water for a few minutes (this is to help clean them) then apply the antifungal cream. At this point, discontinue using the A&D, or the antibiotic ointment.

Not sure that I'm over treating as I did first treatment 3ish weeks ago and 2nd treatment yesterday with some petroleum jelly in between. Not every day though. So he's only had 2 neem treatments and the redness didn't abate in between them. But I do agree that there might be more than one thing going on. I really don't have the space to separate him unless he has the yard during the day by himself when girls are in and sleeps in crate at night. I've always wanted a house chicken so that wouldn't be terrible hahaha My husband and I just went out again to inspect some of the flock since the last inspection was a couple weeks ago. I've just done random hen grabs since then to do a once-over since I try to make that a habit. 8 out of our 10 girls are due to molt any day. We noticed some loss in wing feathers on backs starting about a month ago but that's also when we dispatched some retired hens and brought the roo/hen ration down to a less desirable number. Figured it was too much roo for the hens and the new girls aren't ready to integrate yet. One roo went after my children on a number of occasions and so I thought it best to rehome him. Was blessed to find an awesome farm where I can still see him. So Jasper now has 10 hens to himself...by summer, our flock will be over 20 again and we plan to incorporate another roo. Have to see how the introduction goes. In any case, a few of our hens now have bare throats.....but I believe that could be a sign of the onset of molting. Otherwise, they appear healthy. A couple have bare breasts and downward but the skin is clean and palish pink and not irritated at all. They're red sexlinks and so we're thinking they thought they wanted to go broody but changed their minds as they're not acting broody. Checked vents and of all the ones I grabbed today, clean and of the same palish pink color of their skin. No apparent irritation. BUT, I checked Sir Jasper's backside again and noticed a fairly large patch of bare skin under the tail that is that same hamburger red. Yipes! That was definitely not like that the last time! So does this change things? I like the idea of the neosporin....would it help to put the petroleum jelly over it to seal it in? Should I wrap with vet wrap and treat every few days or is leaving it exposed and treating daily better? What about the spot under his tail? Would petroleum jelly on that suffocate any mites in his skin? Should I apply neosporin there as well? Or does that suggest plumage or other invisible mites that need another form of treatment? Thank you so much!

 

[Kat C]

I only treat every other week as per a tutorial I found online so I don't think it's over treating that's causing the red. But maybe I'll apply PJ every day for a week first to see if that smothers them. I don't see any goop under scales but some follicles seem to have a whitish substance inside. ..kind of like a feather-zit!

If you are only treating every other week you probably are not overtreating. Perhaps you are expecting more improvement than you can get. Did the legs improve at all from the treatment? Or are they the same as they were at the beginning?

 

[Kat C]

Does the rooster seem to be bothered in any way. Perhaps this is just how his legs are.
Take a look at this roo ... legs look bad but it is normal for the breed
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/06/the-dragon-like-legs-of-dong-tao-chicken.html
I've have roos that loose all the feathers on the front of their thighs. The skin underneath is bright red. As far as I can tell its just something in their genetics. Looked bad at first but now I just accept that that is how those roos are. If the rooster isn't lame and the condition doesn't get worse maybe its something you can just ignore......

We have a few birds with a few feathers on their legs that don't come from feathered legged breeds and one Faverolle. Frankly I dislike it as it is not very functional and certainly not a trait on the wild Red Jungle Fowl. IMO it seems like it would be better to breed it back out of the bloodlines. Not that anyone is interested in my opinion on the matter

 

[Folly's place]

Unless you look carefully at your birds at night when they are roosting, you may be missing a mite infestation.
I agree that soapy water may irritate your rooster without fixing anything; just a rinse, or no water at all, might be better.
I have (thankfully!) had zero experience with leg mites here, so that's not very helpful. I do have feather legged Belgian d'Uccles, and standard Marans right now, and never had any issues with either because of their leg feathering. It's cute!
We are spraying everyone with permethrin tonight, because I found a mite on one bird a few days ago. Yuck! It's been too cold to spray until now. LOVE those wrens that visit the coop!
Mary

 

[getaclue]

Please excuse me. When you said you were treating your bird, I assumed you meant on a daily basis. While your treatment is overkill as a single treatment, no treatment for mites, a bacterial problem, or a fungal problem is going to work if you only do it once every 3 weeks. Since you've discovered the irritation around the vent too, I'd suggest starting with neosporin. Instead of spraying the entire coop, you can use a powder to dust the roosts, nest boxes, and birds. Repeat in 7 days to kill newly hatched nits. It will as least hold them at bay until you can spray.

 

[Kat C]

Unless you look carefully at your birds at night when they are roosting, you may be missing a mite infestation.
I agree that soapy water may irritate your rooster without fixing anything; just a rinse, or no water at all, might be better.
I have (thankfully!) had zero experience with leg mites here, so that's not very helpful. I do have feather legged Belgian d'Uccles, and standard Marans right now, and never had any issues with either because of their leg feathering. It's cute!
We are spraying everyone with permethrin tonight, because I found a mite on one bird a few days ago. Yuck! It's been too cold to spray until now. LOVE those wrens that visit the coop!
Mary

It sounds like you are describing roost mites. I have always had success in getting rid of them by spraying the roost several times rather than the chickens. That pretty much ends it for the season. Sometimes they get in the nest boxes too, so you can empty them, spray them and put in new straw. Most of them seem to go back to the roost during the day as that is where they lay their eggs. I use a commercial flea spray during the day when the birds are outside. Since we have moved we haven't had any. Whatever other feather parasites our birds may have never rise to the level of a problem. They are healthy and dust bathe and preen to keep things under control on their own. I think that possibly the birds with tighter feathering like wild chickens don't have as many problems as do fluffier birds. We have crossed game blood into our flock and with it came an increase in vitality and length of life. I still have a few birds that get leg mites. Some seem more susceptible than others.

 

[renk777]

Please excuse me. When you said you were treating your bird, I assumed you meant on a daily basis. While your treatment is overkill as a single treatment, no treatment for mites, a bacterial problem, or a fungal problem is going to work if you only do it once every 3 weeks. Since you've discovered the irritation around the vent too, I'd suggest starting with neosporin. Instead of spraying the entire coop, you can use a powder to dust the roosts, nest boxes, and birds. Repeat in 7 days to kill newly hatched nits. It will as least hold them at bay until you can spray.

Treated twice....every other week as per instructions online. Petroleum jelly in between but not daily. Instructions said that was overkill. I didn't expect it to be cured bUT after 2 treatments and the PJ, figured I'd see some improvement. What's also weird is that the skin that's bare doesn't look irritated aside from color. His vent is clean aND feathered all around. It's above that area that is bright red like his legs. Stupid question but do all roos have a bare patch the size of a silver dollar below their tails? Could the red coloration just be hormonal? It's finally dark...will check with flashlight to see if anything is scurrying. If I can get him. Coop is hard to get into for a person and he likes the top roost in the back. Figures LOL