Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

I have a very friendly Rhode Island Red rooster who greets me with a cluck and follows my wife and I around the yard like a puppy whenever we let him out of the tractor. We basically rescued him from somebody who wanted to get rid of him and he'd been living with the pigs. He eats heartily enough and seems outwardly healthy but he's got a few areas on his legs and feet that have a redish/pinkish look to them, to my eyes they look like they might be some kind of inflamation almost. There is no puss or crust or anything like that, just that discoloration in certain areas.

Does anybody who has a little more experience with chickens have any ideas for me? I've tried a few searches but no luck so far. I thought about maybe applying some iodine to the affected areas but I don't know if that's safe or not. I do plan on giving the big guy a bath soon since the pigpen left him kind of grimy despite his best efforts at grooming.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

I'm pretty sure that that red coloration is normal. My rooster has it as well.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

Thanks for the response. My wife thought it was normal too and it didn't seem to bother the rooster at all, I just wanted to be sure. I've been keeping him seperate from my hens as part of a standard quarantine and I'll probably bring him to a vet before I let the chickens all mingle.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

Sometimes they get little mites and other parasites in their leg scales. Our Rhodies had yellow legs. But not uniform.

We sprinkled diatomaecous earth (food grade, not pool kind) in their housing as prevention for the part of the life cycle off the birds. But it does not sound like a big deal as described.

Check around on pricing if you get DE. It varies 500% according to where you buy. We got 50lb bags locally which last a long time. It keeps down flies too, and it just extra calcium if they eat it. Even safe to keep weevils out of feed.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

I've been looking for diatomaceous earth locally but no luck at the feed store or hardware store. If I have to I'll order a couple hundred pounds online, it'd benefit my tortoise as well as the chickens.

Well, I bathed the rooster, he's looking a lot better now. There doesn't appear to be any of the white scaley mites and the reddish areas seem ok. There is a new point of concern, though. His comb was pretty dirty initially and now that it's clean I can see that the rear portion is darker than the front. It is also colder to the touch, like there is a circulation problem. I thought it might just have been because he was cold from the bath but he's dried out now and the problem is persisting. I'd read somewhere that dark areas on the comb could be a sign of a problem so I'm going to research it further. I know it's safest to get your chickens young and from a reputable breeder but this guy has a great personality and I was hoping I'd be able to give him a better home than he had. I'd like to see him healthy.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

Even though I live in the woods we actually don't have too many wild birds on our property. We get some water birds down by the pond but they are nowhere near the chickens and as for the rest, well, we have a hawk and an owl that live on our property and the other birds seem to keep clear. We do have some turkeys come through from time to time, but again not near the chickens. We should do ok as far as getting diseases through wild birds.

The good news this morning is that the rooster's comb is looking normal. I heard him calling outside so I went to bring him some food and almost all the darkish area was gone. As soon as he started eating the rest went away. I guess it must really be a circulation issue, it looks like the rear extremity of his comb is just a little more susceptible to getting cold when he's wet or when he's been sleeping. Other than that he's active, his poop looks good(nasty, but you can tell a lot about an animal's health from how the stool comes out) and he's got a hearty appetite. I think I will do some treatment for mites just to be sure before he mingles with the other chickens. My land has excellent soil, plenty of sun and water but the downside of living in a swamp state is that there's not so much dust to come by. I'm thinking of either semi-regularly sprinkling some diatomaceous earth down where they're tractoring or else giving them some kind of kitty litter box with sand and d.e. in it for dustbathing purposes.

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

I'm enjoying your fun with your chickens. A sweet tempered rooster is great. Not all are and it gives you the opportunity to increase your flock next year.

I will say 1 rooster to 10+ hens seems like a kindness to the hens. We kept hens only the last time, but when we had roosters, they are busy boys!

Re: Chicken Health Question For Those With More Experience
 

Them chickens are pretty fun. :D

I had been thinking more along the lines of 4 or 5 hens per rooster but I guess that will need to be adjusted according to the temperment of the rooster, if we end up with a randy one I'd rather "share the love" than have hens getting stressed from too much attention. My original concept was to have the breeding/egg hens live with their rooster and have other tractors for meat birds once their feathers come in. Now I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the hens and the rooster should be kept next to eachother but seperate except when I deliberately want to make baby chickens. Towards that end I am updating my PVC tractor design to be easily partitioned. I guess we'll see how they respond to that scheme.

Right now I'm not quite sure what I would do with a dozen eggs every morning, so I'm wanting to keep my flock relatively small for the moment. Two of my neighbors have flocks of their own as well, so we've got a pretty good breeding pool out here and there's a lot more chickens within a radius of a few miles. I guess that's the other thing, I'm not sure exactly how many birds I'd need to maintain a healthy gene pool. In most cases downbreeding is much more dangerous than inbreeding but between culling the unfit animals and having a properly porportioned breeding group there must be a happy median somewhere. I don't have quite enough land to breed my own cattle for more than a couple generations without introducing new blood but the chickens are small enough and prolific enough to work as my sustainable source of meat.