Hello, Dr. Chicken Mom!

Just like any living creature, sometimes, chickens get sick. When they fall ill, it can be really difficult to treat them unless you have a wealth of knowledge and a toolbox for chicken first aid. Check out our video below and read more to learn about our chicken first aid kit!

Common Chicken Diseases

In order to be prepared for chicken illness, you first need to know what is wrong with your chicken! Signs and symptoms vary from disease to disease, but some of the more common diseases are:

1. Coccidiosis: Coccidiosis is a disease that several farm animals, chickens included, can get from a parasite called coccidia, which is found in infected animal feces and tissue. This means that any animals that come into contact with an infected animal are liable to contract coccidiosis. The parasite leeches all the important nutrients that a chicken needs to survive. Coccidiosis is characterized by blood in chicken feces and lethargy, weight loss, loss of appetite, and general weakness.

2. Egg Bound or Lash Eggs: An egg bound chicken has an egg stuck in her reproductive tract. A stuck egg could cause infection. A lash egg on the other hand is a weirdly shaped, often soft and puss-like egg resulting from an infection in the reproductive tract, either bacterial or viral.

3. Chicken Lice and Mites: Chicken lice are the equivalent to human lice. They feed on chicken blood and cause itchiness and feather loss. Chicken mites are similar in nature to human scabies. They cause the legs to get scaly and are generally irritating to the chickens.

4. Open Wounds: Chickens can get themselves in precarious situations and can cut themselves. To further complicate things, other chickens don’t like when one chicken has a wound and can pick on and peck at the wounded chicken. This can make it difficult to treat open wounds.

5. Bumblefoot: This disease of the feet is painful for chickens who have it. It’s a bacterial infection that leads to inflammation in their feet.

6. Vitamin or Mineral Deficiency: If a chicken (or chick) is not getting enough vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, protein, or probiotics, they can become sick. Who knew chickens were so high maintenance. Luckily for us, the majority of the vitamin, minerals, and protein can be obtained through chicken feed and free ranging chickens, but every once in a while, they need a little extra boost!

So, in order to help with each of these issues, we’ve put together a chicken first aid kit!

The First Aid Kit

We put the kit in two small tote boxes because we had that size lying around, but it would all fit in a slightly larger box, too. We made sure the boxes were sealable and waterproof because we are going to keep them with the chickens in case we need early intervention out at the coop.

To keep ourselves and our chickens safe, our first aid kit include several pairs of vinyl gloves and a rechargeable headlight. When we treat an ill chicken, we do not want to immediately touch another chicken just in case whatever we touched (bumblefoot, infected vent, etc.) is transferable. The headlight will help us to see issues more clearly. We also have hand sanitizer in our kits that will be for before and after treating and handling each chicken.

We have several things for basic wound care. We can use our tweezers, nail clippers, and small scissors for their nails or anything else that we may need. We have cotton balls, cotton swabs, bandages, and cloth and self-adhesive wraps. We will use iodine, Blu-Kote, hydrogen peroxide, and Vetericyn Plus for infection control. Styptic powder is used to stop bleeding quickly. Popsicle sticks make excellent splints.

Petroleum jelly is used for not only frost-bite, but also to put on chicken’s legs for mites.

Low dose aspirin is in our chicken first aid kit to provide some pain management.

For coccidiosis, we have Corid, which is an oral supplement to help rid the chickens of the parasite. We have syringes to help with proper application of this and other vitamins in our first aid kit as well.

We will use epsom salt baths for several things with our chickens. Epsom salt baths have shown some chicken owners success with mites and bumblefoot, but many chicken owners swear by the epsom salt baths for an egg-bound chicken or one who has had lash eggs and other reproductive tract issues. We also have hemorrhoid cream for a prolapsed vent, you know, just in case.

We also have leg tags for our chickens for identification purposes. We’re not sure we’re going to use these, but we have them if we need or want them.

The majority of our first aid kit holds preventative supplements. We have Rooster Booster and Nutri-Drench for vitamins and minerals. We have Hydro-Hen as a 3-in-1 probiotic, electrolyte, and acidifier. Apple Cider Vinegar is used for general digestive health. We have a bottle of dewormer. And we have antacids for calcium deficiencies.

The two things that wouldn’t fit in our totes are a dish washing bucket for our epsom salt baths and a plastic dog crate. When a chicken is wounded and needs extra care, she will live in the dog crate with a puppy pad underneath her. This gives her time to heal, especially if other chickens are picking on her.

Although we don’t want to use our chicken first aid kit, it’s better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not be prepared. We’ll keep you all updated on if and when we use it, but for now, see yall next time!