I noticed a couple of my chickens were holding one leg up.  When I checked it out, the foot/leg area looked kind of scaly with bumpy stuff on it. After some research, I found out it was scaly leg mites. My computer was down so my sister, Wanda was researching it for me.

The odd solution to the problem was petroleum jelly or Vaseline as most of us call it. You smear it on the feet and legs and you actually smother the mites.   I put the chickens with Vaseline on their feet into an area that had lots of hay on the floor.  I didn’t want the dirt to stick to the Vaseline and figured the straw would work better.

I cleaned-out the straw and poo in my chicken houses and put down Sevin Dust and fresh hay. I separated the two hens that looked like they were walking odd and repeated the Vaseline for a couple days. The scaly bumpy stuff will actually come off in a few days  if you peel or pick at it. You have to be careful though because if it is not ready to come off, it will bleed. Kind of gross but necessary because if the bump is under the foot, it is causing the chicken pain when he/she walks.

I had a number of chickens that had that problem and if you aren’t careful and catch it early, they can lose their toes and I believe it can actually kill the chicken.

Read up on it if you have this problem. There are some other solutions, too. This one worked for me though.