Silkie crusty face and losing feathers

[sunshine3247]

 

[sunshine3247]

So I have four 3 year old silkie hens. (That’s my entire flock) Two of my girls have crusty faces with feather loss. The other two are fine. They’ve had it for maybe a month. I’ve done ivermectin and Martins and clean the coop daily and the run weekly. I’ve never seen any bugs or mites in the area or on the chickens.

They dust bath daily in dirt with DE and lime mixed in. I put poultry nutri drench in they’re water. They’re on 22% protein crumble and don’t free range.

Ive been applying antifungal cream daily for over a week now and they may look a little better.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm guessing that's from mites, the same as scaly leg mites. I haven't seen this before though.

I think your antifungal cream is acting like a sealant so it's killing the mites. Vaseline is what is usually used for scaly leg mites so maybe that would be less irritating to their eyes as it looks like one got some of your cream in their eyes. The ivermectin you gave should be helping that too.

If that's what it is, it can take several weeks, even months sometimes but you're sounding like they're improving a little.

I'd give them vitamin water too, like Nutra Drench or Poultry Cell, etc.

 

[Eggcessive]

Ivermectin is a treatment for scaly face mites, so I doubt if it is that. Vaseline on the skin is also a treatment. I have seen a lot of threads here in the past with silkies and this kind of peeling appearance to the skin. Is this on other parts of the body? OI haven’t seen any answers with any vet answers or histology done during a necropsy. Many times the guesses were related to the skin type of Mareks disease, or a fungal infection. If the antifungal cream is helping, I would continue with that.