Scaly leg mite - liquid paraffin application method!

[Snadger]

Depends if you tell the vet it's for poultry or not. You can order Frontline spray from your vet, but how are they to know what it's being used on?

But in this instance the vet applied it!

[HayleyB]

Frontline isn't licenced but it has been acknowledged by vets that it doesn't affect birds or eggs. The companies that produce animal drugs have to pay for each licence after vigorous and costly testing (per animal) and I'm sure it's economically unviable for chooks as the return will not be anything like their main target of cats and dogs.

[RichmondHens]

Hmmm - food for thought. I guess if your vet prescribed it Snadge then go with it. I'm with Chicken Slave on this though. I would much prefer to use natural remedies/non chemical powders and be confident that I wasn't poisoning my family (or anyone else). We eat a lot of eggs and sell a lot too.

I would like to hear Hilary B's opinion as she is a wise owl on this type of thing. Where are you Hilary?

[Hilary B]

Hmmm - food for thought. I guess if your vet prescribed it Snadge then go with it. I'm with Chicken Slave on this though. I would much prefer to use natural remedies/non chemical powders and be confident that I wasn't poisoning my family (or anyone else). We eat a lot of eggs and sell a lot too.

I would like to hear Hilary B's opinion as she is a wise owl on this type of thing. Where are you Hilary?

I've hardly kept fluffy-legged birds, just a few 'pet' cochins, and they (and the others I had at the time) lived totally free ranging over a half-acre garden, with a field next door that had horses in (not my field, or horses, unfortunately). We just didn't get any noticeable scaly-leg problems at the time.
Oily stuff to smother mites is the only method I've ever used (later, when we no longer had the cochins, and had to confine the hens to keep them out of the feed store), but while I prefer natural methods and substances, in the conditions of a garden run with several chooks, the 'chemical' approach might be needed to get rid of a problem, and switch to natural after that to prevent recurrence.

[RichmondHens]

Thanks Hilary. I've read that feathery legged birds are more prone, but also wet, muddy conditions can promote scaly leg. At the end of the day, we can all choose how we treat it.

[CandJ]

Thankyou one and all for advice. I don't fancy holding Doris's legs in Surgical Spirit for any length of time but will give it a try - she's by some distance the grumpiest of our girls- but perhaps that's because her legs are sore!
In answer to other queries above:
1) The Orange one behind is a Buff (so we're told), the darker one is a Red??? and the black one with the red head is goodness knows what.
2) We love the personalities of them but are somewhat frustrated by the regularity of the broodiness and non-laying. The eggs are wondrous when we get any but it's been a month now. We did have ome bigger hybrids too but they trashed the garden completely and ate everything. These gals are a bit more polite.
3) We got them from the Henhouse Hen House Home just a few miles up the road from us. They sell all sorts.
4) We've generally found that their very free range lifestyle (they have about 1/4 acre of garden to explore) has kept them pest/lice/mite/worm free. Just these pesky leg'uns on Doris.

Cheers

james

[RichmondHens]

The downside to bantams is they do go broody, but they are great characters. You should treat all your birds for scaly leg mite, not just the one showing symptoms, as they will probably all have it to some degree. It is very contagious, but can only be spread bird to bird, and (I am told) not via humans on their boots, unlike some other nasties.