Thickened skin, hardened skin, inflamed skin on chickens back - photos enclosed

[arazla]

I would also like to know how she is doing. We had a Cornish-cross meat bird that had a similar condition and basically lost all her feathers around her vent, legs and belly. We had taken her in from the neighbors because they didn't eat her along with their others and she was such a sweet girl. However, she was so hard to integrate so we ended up taking her to a farm animal sanctuary that had a flock of Cornish. Despite some of them being 6 year-old meat birds, they ALL had feathers. Some were wearing aprons even though there were no roosters. They explained that it was to keep them from pecking and eating their own feathers. They slathered our girl in white diaper rash creme and said it should help her grow her feathers back in a few weeks. I'll try to get an update soon. We had another girl with a similar condition for months, but over-mated and top hen. After being separated forever, she finally molted and is now back to new without us really doing anything.

 

[Yvonne49]

Did you ever find out how the Cornish cross is going?

Our old girl is still going strong. Took her to the vet and got some antibiotics. She still has the thickened skin around her preening gland, and I don’t think she grooms herself properly due to age. Is there a way I can help her clean herself?

 

[arazla]

Did you ever find out how the Cornish cross is going?

Our old girl is still going strong. Took her to the vet and got some antibiotics. She still has the thickened skin around her preening gland, and I don’t think she grooms herself properly due to age. Is there a way I can help her clean herself?

She's doing amazing! She has ALL her feathers back. Below is a pic the sanctuary sent me.

One thing I know they do is slather with Desitin. Plus they put aprons on a lot of the Cornish hens to keep them from self picking. They also said they supplement feed with rabbit pellets to keep them full, but apparently they were stopping that, not sure why. She was sneezing a lot and the vet did a culture that showed ORT. She was treated with Amoxicillin.

I had the vet come over for a farm call because we have lots of sinus issues. I asked whether we should treat my whole flock empirically for ORT, but he didn't think so. I get the sense sometimes the animal sanctuaries get much better care. I get different results with every vet I worked with at the same clinic and have spent over a couple thousand dollars over the past couple years so really need to rethink it.