I've mentioned a few times on this blog the problems our chooks have with scaley leg. Over the years, we've been treating it by dunking the chooks legs in vegetable oil (an operation that requires at least 2 people) and dusting the perches with Derris dust. I later had the good idea of trying spray-on oil cooking. It was great - the spraying was much easier than finding a suitable size vessel for dunking the legs, and it used less oil; the only downside was that it didn't work - the oil just didn't go on thickly enough.
Recently, the problem has re-emerged, and at the same time we've had our local vet out on the property giving the donkey injections for an abcess on her leg. Bruce raised the question of scaley leg with the vet, and she told him that we weren't using the right materials. She recommended sump oil rather than cooking oil (because it's so thick and heavy, it sticks well to the legs), and tobacco juice rather than Derris dust. You take a packet of rolling tobacco, soak it in water overnight, strain the tobacco out, then paint the resulting foul-smelling brew onto the perches. It's apparently extremely toxic to all sorts of bugs.
We have tried this approach with great success (although I made the mistake of stirring the tobacco in with my hands, which left them smelling as though I had a 50-a-day habit!). The chooks perked up almost immediately after the treatment and are looking really good a few weeks later.
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