Silkie Bantam With White Crust
by Yvonne Cook
Silkie Bantam With White Crust: I have three bantams. Two are fine and show no signs of any ailment, but one has a really bad white like crust on feet and the backs of legs,that you can snap off, although most of it is attatched to her and looks sore. She is a bit wobbley on her feet. It looks like she may have had it a while, I'm not sure what it could be. I did consider mites etc,,, but then why are my others showing no sign of it..not sure what to treat it as... It would be great if you could shed some light on this for me. Answer: This sounds like what they call scaly leg, which is caused by mites. The other birds may be infected also, but may not yet be showing the full scale signs or may be more immune to them. There are numerous home remedy treatments for this, although I will tell you ahead of time that I have never had this problem and never tried these remedies. The least toxic, but the one that takes the longest is covering the legs with vaseline, which smothers the mites. From what I've heard you have to really be diligent for this method to work. A quicker method would be to mix raw linseed oil and kerosene (parafin) into a 50/50 mixture and dip the birds legs into this. This should kill the mites right off and you should see a vast improvement in a few treatments. I would treat all three birds because the chances are that they are all infected but just not all showing the signs yet. I would also recommend a good cleaning of the coop or pen and a good dusting of diatamaceous earth to prevent the mites from continuing to infect the birds. Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes. |