How to Visually Inspect Your Chickens for Illness or Disease. Photo: Betty & Buffy. Rescued hens at CHOE
You should take a few minutes out of each day to visually inspect each of your chickens. Catching sickness or disease early can prevent most poultry illnesses from spreading to the rest of your flock. The easiest way to do this is too watch them when they come out of the chicken coop in the morning and look for the following signs of illness or disease. Then check your hen house or coop to make sure that none of your birds are hiding or appear ill. If you find one or more chickens who appear ill or has one of the following symptoms during your visual inspection, you should wear gloves and a plastic apron and isolate the sick birds away from your flock as quickly as possible. After isolating them you should examine the sick birds closely, look under feathers, under wings, comb, wattles, check the vent area, and bottoms of the feet. Write down anything unusual you find. To determine what is wrong with your bird you can either call a poultry and livestock vet or check our Chicken Health chart or do an online search of the birds symptoms. Of course the vet would be the best bet but if that is not an option for you, then researching symptoms is your best bet. See our list of things to look for when visually inspecting your chickens below.
List of Things To Look For When Visually Inspecting Chickens For Sickness, Illness, & Disease
Photo: Suzanna CHOE Rescued pullet with coccidiosis: Adopted May 2015
The following are the basic signs you need to look for when visually inspecting your chickens for possible illness:
Pale Comb & Wattles
Swollen feet or swollen bumbs between toes
Limping
Blood on feathers, comb, wattles, feet, or vent area
Pasty Butt
Swollen eyes
Open wounds
Redness around a wound
Hiding in a corner
Inactivity
Look for ingrown feathers (Silkies are especially prone to getting ingrown feather infections)
Chicken Tip of the Day: The keys to keeping your chickens healthy and happy is to keep their coop, roost, nestbox, feed dishes, and water clean at all times, regularly treat them for parasites, try to buy chickens that are vaccinated against disease, get them vaccinated, or do it yourself, keep your chickens on fresh ground and make sure their coop and covered run is predator safe.
Pale Comb & Wattles
- Crusty or runny Nostrils
- Crusty or Runny feces in or on Vent area
- Droopy feathers
- Heavy feather loss
- Black Crusty circle on the bottom of feet
- Black spots under scales
- Strange growths (tumors)
Swollen feet or swollen bumbs between toes
Limping
Blood on feathers, comb, wattles, feet, or vent area
Pasty Butt
Swollen eyes
Open wounds
Redness around a wound
Hiding in a corner
Inactivity
Look for ingrown feathers (Silkies are especially prone to getting ingrown feather infections)
Chicken Tip of the Day: The keys to keeping your chickens healthy and happy is to keep their coop, roost, nestbox, feed dishes, and water clean at all times, regularly treat them for parasites, try to buy chickens that are vaccinated against disease, get them vaccinated, or do it yourself, keep your chickens on fresh ground and make sure their coop and covered run is predator safe.
