Easy Health Checks 

Carrying out a daily visual check on your hens will allow you to spot any health problems very quickly. This will allow you to manage and deal with the health issue before the problem becomes serious. Our 7-point visual check can be done when doing your daily egg collection. Remember to sight all hens, those both inside the hen house and out and about in the run.

• Eyes - Your chicken's eyes should be free from discharge, fully open, and bright. You want bright eyed hens!
• Comb - The comb should be firm, and a bright red if the chicken is in lay. Younger chickens (pullets) will have paler combs.
• Droppings - The droppings should be firm and dark brown with white on them. 10% of their droppings will be sloppy. This is perfectly normal and is just a sign that your chickens gut is cleaning itself. Droppings reveal much about the worm burden of your flock. So worth keeping an eye on!
• Feathers - Unless in moult your chicken’s feathers should be shiny and full. An unwell bird will be fluffed up with drooping wings.
• Crop - The crop should be empty in the morning when you first let your chickens out. If the crop is full at this time it could indicate a blocked crop.
• Legs & Feet - You should check the scales on the legs and feet. They should be smooth and not lifting. If they are this could be an indication of scaly leg mites.
• Attitude - Your chickens should be interactive, mobile and full of energy. Birds that are listless, limp, lethargic and behaving differently could be ailing.

Occasionally give your chickens a physical check as feathers hide a lot!

For this physical check-up carefully pick up and hold your hen so it remains calm. Feel it’s breast. You are looking for a plump, rounded breast not a breast sharp like a knife blade. A skinny bird means your bird is underweight. This could be for many reasons. Maybe she is bottom of the pecking order and being kept away from the feeder by other bossy hens or possibly a looming ailment? Check for external parasites. Part your chicken’s feathers and look for small crawling things that could be living on your chicken like lice. This check will help give you a true indication of your bird’s condition and if you need to treat for external parasites.

4 Most Common Chicken Health Issues

WORMS?

Chickens love to eat worms (the ones that live in the ground) but unfortunately, we are not talking about those type of worms in this section. Like all other animals chickens can suffer from parasitic (internal) worms and will need regular worming to prevent them becoming infected. It is much easier to prevent worms or have a little or no worm burden than have to treat a flock with a serious worm burden.
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RED MITE?

Red mite can be a tricky problem to deal with when keeping chickens. Red mites are small parasitic mites that live in your chicken coop in the daytime and feed off the blood of your chickens at night when they come to roost.
All types of chicken coops can get red mite however wooden coops tend to suffer from infestations the most due to the nooks, crcks and crannies.

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SCALY LEG MITE?

Scaly legs on chickens are caused by a parasitic mite that burrow under the scales on the chicken's legs. Usually found in older birds and where birds are infested with red mite. The damaged tissue weeps, which is what these mites
feed on.
The scales become raised and  enlarged and cause discomfort to the hens. You will need to treat the whole flock.

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LICE?

Lice are a fairly common parasite that chickens can suffer from and are passed on by contact with affected birds and wild birds. Lice will live on the chicken's skin underneath the feathers. The entire life cycle happens on the chicken, so it is much easier to treat lice compared to worms. In small numbers lice don’t cause much irritation, however, if in large numbers your chickens will need a bit of extra help from you.
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Other Common Health Issues

If your feathered friends are looking a little fluffed up, dozy and droopy or behaving differently, then this section may hold the solution to your problem.
Just like the cold is common in humans there are a few health issues with chickens that you are likely to encounter as a chicken keeper. Fear not if your hen seems under the weather, a lot of the time there is a simple fix to make her feel shipshape again. This section will run through the most common issues and how to fix them.
Click on the links below.