Hi! Welcome to 'Ask Phill' this is episode 14 - goes on forever - and the subject of today's
ramble is scaly leg, and that's not the type of scaly leg with me and me running shorts in the
winter, this is scaly leg on your chickens. It's a horrible infestation that turns the legs
of you chickens scaly (hence the name) and it's caused by a small mite that
burrows underneath the skin on the legs of your chickens, and causes an inflammation that raises
the scales on the legs like the little bits on a pinecone and they come up like
this - very good impression - and leaves open, raw flesh underneath. It's incredibly irritating for
the birds. If they have a bad infestation it can actually kill them because it stops them
roosting properly and just drags them down, and as we know stress with chickens is the biggest
enemy, and so the mites can also migrate from the legs/feet up to the wattle and around the
little ears things of the chickens so you need to keep an eye on that. Very difficult to spot with
the naked eye but you can see on the legs: what happens is the scales start to come up and you
get a white/grey sort of crusty deposit on the legs - once you've seen it you won't miss it. It's
more common on old birds, and on fluffy footed breeds like Brahmas and Cochins, and all this
sort of thing so you really, really need to watch them. These mites are highly contagious and spread
from one bird to another very easily, especially in damp weather, cold damp weather, muddy runs,
if you keep your runs nice and clean and dry then you'll find you'll get less trouble, but you see
chickens running around in deep mud and all this you'll find they get scaly leg in no time at all.
So "How do we get rid of scaly leg?" you may ask. Well, in the olden days they used to dip the
chicken's feet in diesel or surgical spirit or paraffin, none of which is very nice but it did work
after a fashion, but not the most pleasant thing for your chicken. If you can imagine
having an open wound on you and then dumping it in some petrol or something like that - very
painful and stressful for your chickens, and we know all about stressing chickens. So we now
have proprietary products that we use: things like the Net-tex Scaly Leg Remover which contains an
insecticide, which will kill the mite, and various oils and potions that softens the scales and
the skin to help it heal and stop it being so irritating. If you are organic there
are also Barrier Scaly Leg Spray and Barrier Scaly Leg Ointment which contain things like tea tree
oil and this, but they are better as a prophylactic treatment, so if you want to do that to your birds
once a month then I would say that's probably what to use, if you've got scaly leg mite use
this stuff. To make it more effective, when you've applied it (which is done by spray) you need to do
all your birds because it's contagious, so you may not know that a bird has actually got it yet and
if it may be harbouring some then it'll just spread it to something else, you need to spray all
of them. Get your birds, take them off the perch at night when they're all sat there nicely - you
don't have to chase them around so again, not stressful for them - just put them under your arm,
give the legs a good old spray. If you've got one that's particularly bad - you do sometimes find it
especially with older cockerels and this sort of thing - get some petroleum jelly, Vaseline, whatever
you want to call it and when you've sprayed them, put that over the top of the affected area
and that will do two things: a) it'll seal in the pesticide so it'll work better and b) it'll help
keep the leg moist and soft, so it'll help the skin heal, and it'll make the treatment much more
effective. About once every five to seven days you need to treat, probably two or three times and then
just keep your eyes open. Obviously when you're doing this stuff, rubber gloves, always a good
idea (you shouldn't need a mask) but if you do it in the evening when the birds are on the perches
they won't get stressed, you can spray them, just put them back on the perch, they'll just
stand there and say "what was all that about?" and you should be getting rid of your scaly leg
mite which is what we want. So hopefully that's covered scaly leg mite in chickens! If you've got any
questions, again as usual: email, Facebook, visit the website where there is an Information
Page on scaly leg mite and its effects and also, of course, don't forget to visit it to
keep your eye open for any news on the Bird Flu incidents and protection areas. So once again, thank
you very much for watching, bye bye! If you've got any questions for 'Ask Phill' please email in
to info@flytesofancy.co.uk - that's flight with a Y - or you can go onto our Facebook channel
'Flyte so Fancy' or our Youtube video channel where all the 'Ask Phill' questions are,
and loads more videos from Flyte so Fancy. If you're interested in any products that have
been featured on our videos please have a look on our website which is www.flytesofancy.co.uk
and there's lots and lots of information, lots of products, and loads and loads and loads
of chicken knowledge that's been garnered over the years. Also, just in case you're not on the
internet - I'm not quite sure how you're watching this - but we also do a printed catalogue as well
which we're just printing this year's now. So thank you very much indeed for watching, bye bye!