Spending metre with your flock , celebrate behaviors , and inspecting each poulet for combat injury and sickness are crucial chores to tote up to the daily or weekly to - do list . You bed your flock and its individual personality best , which makes spotting problems loose .
I keep a penny-pinching eye on mySilver - Laced Wyandotte , Pauline . She ’s my weighty Gallus gallus , and that can put her at greater danger for certain experimental condition .
Common Infection: Bumblefoot
Last week , I note Pauline ’s waddling was more pronounced than common , and slenderly to one side . Limping can be a sign of injury , or worse , bumblefoot . Her gait is rather pronounce when she move across the yard trying to keep up with the flock , so I was n’t certain if she was truly limping .
Bumblefoot is an abscess inside the footpad have when a modest cut or detrition allows bacterium to get inside . profound breeds , like the Wyandotte , are more susceptible to bumblefoot because they land from high places a little harder than the rest . However , any breed can become septic when a small hurt assemble up with a littleStaphylococcosisminding its own line .
Heavy dual - purpose breeds can be unmanageable to maneuver for diagnosis . As an added bonus , Pauline scorn human contact of any kind . scrutinize her for an infection was a top precedence , but it ranked middling low on my ebullience scale leaf . Of all chicken complications , I fear treating bumblefoot more than anything else . It ’s pretty thoroughgoing , but cutting out the infection is necessary to lay aside the hen ’s life .
I funk look for a black scab , swelling or redness on the underside of Pauline ’s feet . Thankfully , I rule none of these things . Because she ’s age , though , I ’m going to chequer the bottom of all the hen ’ pes more regularly .
That ’s when I encounter wooden leg pinch .
Common Infestation: Leg Mites
The mites that cause scaly peg ca n’t be seen with the naked eye . They tunnel underneath the leg scales , which lift them like damaged hair cuticle . They ’re bloodsucking , feed on crybaby ’ tissues and rip . It ’s a painful stipulation that can cause crippling , anemia and eventually death . If you have a terrible case of scaly leg in your flock , you ’ll find the legs and feet await crusty and deform . Healthy leg scale lie down flavourless on the legs .
Pauline ’s scaly leg looks like a recent and mild case , so I ’ll treat her of course , without pesticides . The other hens are n’t showing signs of peg mite , but they ’ll need to be treat , too .
First , I want to gazump their legs in warm water , then clean house them gently . As I do this , I ’ll wrap her in a towel to keep her tranquil ( and to keep my typeface from being smack with flank feathers ) . After her legs are clean and dry , I ’ll use food - grade cooking crude oil to her scales to suffocate the mites . Applying something edible will ensure she ’s not harmed if she pecks at her legs . Some the great unwashed use petroleum jelly to smother speck , and that ’s just fine if you do n’t mind your biddy ingesting it . A third pick would be to use the cookery oil color , and then seal it in with petroleum jelly . last , a thorough coop cleaning is in order .
Until Pauline ’s stage scales are lying down straight again , I ’ll demand to repeat the discourse several times per week . discourse must be continued because only the tinge are smothered in this process , not the nits ( eggs ) . If I stop discourse , the nit will hatch , and we ’ll have to get down all over again . The key is to keep stifle the mites at their earliest microscope stage so they stop reproducing while the legs cure .
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