Do Not Try To Keep a Pet Chicken Before You Read This!

The sustainable living movement is gaining momentum and as a result, a lot of folks are deciding to lift chickens in their backyard.

 

Luckily, chickens are comparatively straightforward to lift and keep however there are variety of common chicken health issues that you just got to bear in mind of. If you own chickens or are considering buying a couple of hens for your backyard, you wish to familiarize yourself with the varied illness and chicken diseases that your flock will contract. the earlier you diagnose and treat chicken health issues, the higher it's for your entire flock. Some diseases unfold terribly quickly and may unfold to the whole flock during a flash.

Common Chicken Health issues
chicken-health-problemsThere are a spread of common chicken health issues that you just got to bear in mind of if you're planning to own your own backyard chickens. Most chicken health issues can have an effect on their air sacs, lungs and air passages that clearly can result in respiratory issues. this will result in the eventual death of the affected chickens terribly quickly if you do not treat them.

If you retain the setting that your chickens live in as clean as doable, you'll be able to greatly minimize the danger of chicken health issues developing. If you retain too several chickens in a locality that's not massive enough, you're conjointly soliciting for hassle. If you permit your hens to lift chicks, you'll got to either cut back the quantity of chickens in your flock. If you do not wish to skinny out the quantity of birds you're keeping then you'll have enlarge your chicken house and chicken run or add new areas as your flock grows.

Prevention And Treatment Of Chicken Health Problems
As discussed earlier, the best prevention is to keep your chicken coops and nesting boxes as clean as possible. Set up a regimen to regularly disinfect them with soap and water. But sometimes even the cleanest chicken coops and the best cared for chickens will suffer from chicken health problems.

Once you are dealing with infested birds, first remove all of your nesting boxes and all bedding from your chicken coop. Clean and disinfect everything that you can get to. If you can, move your chickens to a new area for a few months until you have a chance to get the infestation under control. Notice I said "under control" instead of "eliminated" because once you have an infestation, it is almost impossible to completely eradicate them. You just have to try and control them.

Then you will need to decide what type of treatment is best for your flock. You can purchase Sevin powder to effectively get rid of lice and mite infestations on your chickens. You can use it directly in your chicken coops and on the chickens themselves. Re-treatment will be required in order to stop the life cycle of new eggs that weren't killed the first time around or your chickens will be re-infested.

Another product that is not toxic is called Orange Guard and it is an extremely organic treatment that you can use in your chicken coops but it cannot be applied directly to your chickens.

For Scaly Leg mites, you can try using a variety of oils like mineral oil, vegetable oil, Vaseline, etc. You have to capture your chickens and apply it very heavily to their legs and feet. Unfortunately this has to be done every two days until your chickens are no longer infested.

A better way to treat Scaly Leg mites is to use Adams Flea and Tick Mist (with IGR). You can spray their legs and feet and then massage it in to make sure that you have even coverage. While it is more expensive initially, works on adult mites and their hatching eggs which is great. It is also cheaper in the long run when you factor in the fact that it works for three months at a time. I mark my calendar and just treat my entire flock every three months like clockwork. The hens and roosters hate it but oh well. I catch them all after dark to save myself a lot of grief.