Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: westview on January 27, 2012, 14:48
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Hello everyone - I have a query on the condition on one of my chicken's comb...
Barbara is an ex-bat and I've had her for approx 18 months now. I have 3 other ex-bats all looking good and happy. Barbara recently had a partial moult and all feathers have grown back fine but her comb has stayed quite pale and looks white and flecky. Almost like it's had a sprinkling of icing sugar? She is fine in herself, moving around ok and eating lots as usual..
I have a plastic GreenFrog coop - I do keep an good eye out for any sign of red mite and daily poo pick n freshen up the wood shavings...
They are due to be dewormed (Flubenvet) again next month and deflea'd (frontline).
Should I be concerned do you think? I know the girls can be very hardy and didn't want to leave something that could get serious...
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The stuff which looks like icing sugar could possibly be favus which is a yeast infection that hens can get on their combs. If it is this it can be treated using athletes foot cream called Daktarin.
You say her comb is pale - is she in lay at the moment, if she isn't this may be why. If it is a pale pink colour I should think she is OK, I would be concerned if it grey/blueish in colour as this could indicate possible circulation problems.
Hope this helps
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Hi Helen, thank you for this, I'll pop into town tomorrow and get that cream. Do you think I should apply once a day may be for 2 - 3 days?
None of my girls are particularly in lay at the moment. I get the odd egg now and then but they do tend to eat it (am tackling that problem with filing eggs with english mustard tomorrow!). I'm feeding them on the ex-bat feed so that doesn't actively encourage eggs. I thought I'd start mixing in a bit of layers pellet very gradually in the summer to see if they start laying again.
I'll keep an eye on the colour of her comb - I was worried it might start going purple as it did on one of my other chooks a few months ago and then she died of what I think was a stroke. :(
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I haven't actually used it yet (it seemed to clear up on my hen) however I found the thread that I first saw (http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=57411.0 (http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=57411.0) where Hillfooter says he applied it lightly to his cockerel's comb on 3 occasions, 3 days apart. I would suggest trying the same.
Hope this helps :)
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Fabulous - I'll get straight on to it....... thank u so much!