This winter sucks! My silkies had beard lice and will probably lose their beards, now I have one on Tylan for respiratory issues and the exposed flock on Duramycin because they are sneezing. I brought one of my Wyandotte girls in because she had poo all over her fluff only to find nits on her too. Then I went outside to find the only sand not frozen solid in the silkie coop for the flocks to dust bathe in, only to discover our gates are all frozen solid to the ground. After much digging out I was able to pry the coop run door open, get a bucket of sand for the house silkies ( they have been in here for a month) and do it all over again to get sand for the big flock in the barn. OMG first winter with chickens is weraing me out!
Hello kabhyper1: Sounds miserable in winter. In So Calif it's opposite for us. Our misery is in the hot 2-week 3-digit heatwaves & hot weather most of the year plus our State declared drought. I ID'd w/ every account you listed. One of my Silkies had a respiratory problem & had an injection plus 10 days of Tylan from the vet. She breathed so noisily we sat w/ her all night thinking she was dying & took her to the vet first thing in the morning thinking we had to put her down. It was amazing how quickly she got better after the injection.
For lice/mites I have been lucky in 3 years not to have a case of it on the hens. I use an OMRI Poultry Protector once a month on the cleaned out nestboxes in all the cracks, seams, crevices, plus spray directly on the hens' skin per directions. The stuff is not cheap but haven't had one infestation. Some people will use Pymethrin but I prefer the organic OMRI method first & use pesticide as a last resort & haven't needed to yet. Poultry Protector is wonderful stuff. There's also a Mite Protector from the same manufacturer.
We had one Silkie as a house chicken until she was 6 mos & in a diaper. She got so accustomed to daily tush baths from wearing chicken diapers that today we have no problems handling her anywhere on her body. Once in a while a hen gets a really dirty butt so we'll bring her in after roosting, give a warm tush bath using baby shampoo. The baby shampoo is gentle & really loosens the gunk in the butt feathers that warm water alone won't do. With really fluffy butts it takes quite a while to gently finger wash the gunk off the vent feathers. We immediately blowdry the wet feathers on low heat & make sure not to get the skin hot by keeping our fingers close to the feathered skin to keep from overheating. It's amazing how chickens aren't afraid of blowing fans or hairdryers. Our Silkies love to stand in front of the heater fan in winter & the box fans in summer - so cute!
After drying off the wet butt feathers, we spray w/ Poultry Protector on the hen per directions as a preventative measure against lice/mites. Then we look under the wing skin, top of the scalp, under the beard/muff, in the vent area and down the legs for critter inspection. We'll trim toenails if needed, massage feet/legs w/ vitamin E oil & on combs/wattles if dry looking, & give a drop of baby vitamins (usually do vitamins a couple times a week). With vitamins, 2 hens love it & open their beak to drink the drop while the other 2 hens resist so we wet the side of their beak w/ vitamin & eventually they open their beak to get the drop off of them & it leaks into their mouth. We don't like forcing the beak open w/ fingers so the annoying drop on the side of their beak is very effective to get them to open & take a liquid drop. Sometimes they shake their heads & we get splashed w/ vitamin!
For the leg/comb massages we like using vitamin E oil because not only does it soften & protect nicely, it's not greasy. We've used vaseline & A&D ointments but the grease sticks to the feathers & the next day dirt sticks to the grease in the feathers from the dust baths. With vitamin E the oil is still effective as a lubricant & mite preventative without messing up the feathers w/ grease. My hands are soft from the E oil afterwards.
As for dust baths our girls use the whole back yard in any pocket of dirt that suits them. I plan to set up a raised garden 4x4' bed & fill w/sand, ash, & a little white DE. Some heated debates are going on about the safety or effectiveness of DE for chickens but I don't plan on feeding it to them but think it may be helpful to include a little bit of the pure white food grade in their dust bath box.
For worming I use Ivermectin paste 2x a year which my vet has approved. I use the equivalent of one drop per pound of bird on the skin under their wings. My vet is happy that I do this because it makes his diagnosis easier if he knows I'm taking preventative mite/lice/worming measures w/ the birds. Keeping them lice/mite & worm-free is related to better egg production too.
