What’s wrong with my chickens?

[lamanash]

I just notified that my 5 month chickens has something on their heads. What is this and why they have it? So far only 3 of my chickens has it

 

[21hens-incharge]

Looks like fowl pox to me.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/fowl-pox-prevention-treatmen/

@Wyorp Rock @azygous @Eggcessive

Your thoughts are always helpful.

 

[azygous]

If mosquitoes are a common thing around your chickens, then that would more or less give weight to the diagnosis of fowl pox. The dry form,what your chickens appear to have, is relatively benign. The wet form is much more serious and can affect the inside of a chicken and make things very, very uncomfortable. Check inside the chickens' mouths to be sure that blisters aren't forming in there that can affect eating.

You can treat the dry pox lesions with Betadine or Blu-kote to hurry them along toward healing. There is a vaccination available you might wish to look into.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Looks like fowl pox to me.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/fowl-pox-prevention-treatmen/

@Wyorp Rock @azygous @Eggcessive

Your thoughts are always helpful.

Looks like you nailed it

 

[lamanash]

If mosquitoes are a common thing around your chickens, then that would more or less give weight to the diagnosis of fowl pox. The dry form,what your chickens appear to have, is relatively benign. The wet form is much more serious and can affect the inside of a chicken and make things very, very uncomfortable. Check inside the chickens' mouths to be sure that blisters aren't forming in there that can affect eating.

You can treat the dry pox lesions with Betadine or Blu-kote to hurry them along toward healing. There is a vaccination available you might wish to look into.

Can I use iodine ? How to treat? With cotton swaps?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Can I use iodine ? How to treat? With cotton swaps?

Did you see/read the link shared by @21hens-incharge in post#2?
Have you looked inside the beak for any lesions or plaques?

It's best not to disturb scabs, but you can use Iodine to help dry them up. If I were going to do that, yes, I would dab it on with a q-tip.

 

[jlwquilter]

I’d say avian pox. Some of my hens had/have it too. It’s a virus. All you can do is treat the symptoms. Checking for wet pox lesions inside the beak is critical! Because it can effect their ability to eat and you don’t know it. I learned this the hard way.

One example: Penny (light Brahma) had the lesions on the side of her beak. While I saw her ‘eating’ in fact she wasn’t getting the food to stay in her mouth long enough to swallow because the lesions were stopping the beak from closing enough. She lost a lot of weight before I knew/understood what was happening. We nursed her back to health - which included forced feedings- but we could have avoided her getting weak if we had known to look out for this. Lessons learned!

The pox moves slowly thru the flock I read - and it seems true! I have 2 hens with pox marks right now and I watch them closely. Thankfully they seem to have dry pox instead of wet pox. Everyone gets a health check once a week now. 20 chickens takes some time but it’s worth it to me to be able to catch issues as early as I can.

There’s a lot of great info on here to help you thru this! Search for avian or fowl pox and post if you need help. Good luck!

 

[jlwquilter]

I used iodine on pox sores too. Now many of my hens have purple combs! Will the color eventually fade or the skin cells renew back to normal color?

 

[lamanash]

Did you see/read the link shared by @21hens-incharge in post#2?
Have you looked inside the beak for any lesions or plaques?

It's best not to disturb scabs, but you can use Iodine to help dry them up. If I were going to do that, yes, I would dab it on with a q-tip.

Did you see/read the link shared by @21hens-incharge in post#2?
Have you looked inside the beak for any lesions or plaques?

It's best not to disturb scabs, but you can use Iodine to help dry them up. If I were going to do that, yes, I would dab it on with a q-tip.

I check inside the beak - its clean, I use Q-tip and apply iodine - looks like its help - they let me to do it and did not fight back, they just follow me to get more treatments
Will check on them tomorrow. How often I could use iodine? Is it OK to use it every day until its dried completely?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I check inside the beak - its clean, I use Q-tip and apply iodine - looks like its help - they let me to do it and did not fight back, they just follow me to get more treatments
Will check on them tomorrow. How often I could use iodine? Is it OK to use it every day until its dried completely?

Glad that seems to be helping. I don't see any reason why you can't apply the Iodine daily.