Poultry Questions Answered - August 2011

Written by Sue Clarke. Provided by New Zealand Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today, magazine August 2011.

Sick hen syndrome

We inherited some hens (about 20) of varying breeds and ages when we purchased our block. We use homeopathy for worming and for mites. They have a large, airy hen house in an orchard and eat organic wheat that we soak for about 48 hours to the point where it's beginning to sprout. One tiny Araucana that is pretty much pure white (she has a little bit of black/grey in her tail) hasn't had an appetite for about a week. She's not hanging out with the flock, and this morning she didn't want to leave the perch in the hen house. Her symptoms are pretty general for a sick hen I guess. I've thought about putting some apple cider vinegar in her water (as suggested in How to Care for Your Poultry, just for a day) and I'm wondering if you think that's a good idea? I don't have the tonics you mention in the poultry book but have a general animal remedy called Anima Strath, a yeast-based supplement. I'm not sure if yeast is a good idea for poultry though. Glenys Bean, Matakana

Lifestyle Block poultry expert Sue Clarke replies:

Although that doesn't give me a lot of clues as to what ails Madonna, I suspect she will have some infection or other, or even possibly some internal tumours which are quite common in older birds. Any kind of nutritional supplement may well support her while she is coping with an infection.

Yeast - B vitamins - are beneficial in a lot of situations and having looked at the details on Anima Strath (a fermented herb-yeast food supplement), I don't think that it will do any harm.

I would hold off administering the cider vinegar for now as it wipes out good and bad bacteria at the same time and while that is good if there is an obvious enteritis or gut upset, when there is perhaps another infection going on you don't want to wipe out the good bacteria. You could try giving her a bit of one of the good probiotic yoghurts too.

Just a comment re their diet, you maybe could look at offering them a bit more to eat than just wheat. Poultry are omnivores and need animal protein in their diets as well as grains and vegetation. Although free range birds are able to find a certain amount of insect life to provide for protein needs, it is not always available in the sort of daily quantities they need, especially in the colder months.

Try tempting your sick girl with a bit of mince, dog roll or tinned cat food or even crumbled hard-boiled egg.

Grey skin

I have a few free range chickens and they have all just developed grey scaly skin around their eyes and beak on their heads. I think that they have scaly mites on their legs as a few scales are a bit raised-looking. I was going to treat their legs with vasaline but was wondering how I treat their heads around their eyes and if it was indeed caused by the same mite. They are looking very miserable but still eating. Julie, by email

Sue replies:

It sounds as though your birds have a burrowing mite around their faces. It could be the same one that is affecting their legs - the scaly leg mite Knemidocoptes mutans or the scaly skin mite Epidermoptes bilobatus, or possibly both. The vaseline treatment will be ok on their faces as well, as it only smothers the mites, however it may rub off rather easily and will need constant reapplication.

Treat all your birds with Eprinex cattle pour-on (not injectible or oral) if you can as that will assist from the inside. It is absorbed into the bird's blood stream for several weeks. One drop - just 0.1ml - treats 1kg of bird, so two drops for a 2kg bird and three drops for a bigger hen. Your vet or a friendly farmer should be able to let you have a small quantity as you only need a teaspoon or two to treat quite a few birds.

Here is a bit more information about different sorts of mites: www.poultryhub.org [external site].

You can also try mixing some Pestene insecticide powder in with the vaseline as well.

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