Chickens can exhibit very bizarre behaviors, these animals like to roll around in the sand to get parasites out and they like to peck at each other too.
If you notice that your chicken is lifting its legs high when it walks then you’d be right to be worried. This article looks at why this may be happening.
Table of Contents
Chicken lifting legs high when walking:
Scaly leg mites:
One sign that your bird is suffering from scaly leg mites is the bird lifting its legs high when walking.
Scaly leg mites are microscopic insects that burrow and live under the scales of a chicken’s feet and lower legs. They eat at the chicken’s flesh and leave waste under the chicken’s scales.
This causes the bird’s feet and scales to become scabby, thick, raised, and crusty. This is uncomfortable and painful to birds.
If left unchecked, this can cause the bird to lose its toes, become lame or develop deformities.
What to do:
An at-home treatment for scaly leg mites is to soak the bird’s feet in warm water, exfoliate the skin, dip the bird’s feet in oil to suffocate the leg mites, and then apply petroleum jelly to the area.
You can use olive oil, linseed oil, mineral oil, or vegetable oil for this treatment.
Pain in the birds feet:
If your bird is lifting its legs very high when walking then there may be something wrong with the bird’s foot or feet. An injury can cause the bird’s feet to be painful, this can make the bird lift its legs high when walking.
Also, if the bird naturally has feathers on its feet then the bird may have new feathers growing in. The growth of new feathers can make the bird uncomfortable and cause it to lift its legs when walking.
New feathers have a blood supply and if these feathers are injured, if they are knocked or stubbed, then they can bleed and this can be painful making the bird lift its legs high when walking.
What to do:
Examine the underside of the bird’s feet to see if there is an injury under any of the bird’s feet. Clean, sanitize and disinfect the bird’s foot if you realize that it is injured.
If there are feathers growing on your bird’s foot, and one of them breaks as the bird is walking around, then you’d need to pull the broken feather out as soon as you realize that it’s broken.
If you don’t pull the feather out then the feather can bleed quite heavily.
Unfamiliar surface:
If your bird is stepping on a surface that is unfamiliar to it, like grass when the bird is used to hard surfaces, then the bird will lift its legs high when walking.
What to do:
If the bird is lifting its legs high when walking, because it is unfamiliar with a surface, then the bird simply needs to get used to the new surface that it’s stepping on.
Vision problems:
Humans aren’t the only organisms that can develop eyesight issues, chickens can have eyesight problems as well.
If your bird is lifting its legs high when it walks around then the bird may be blind or partially blind.
Vision problems will cause the bird to become extra cautious when walking around and make it lift its legs high when walking.
What to do:
Figuring out if your bird really has eyesight problems is the first thing you’d need to do.
Test the bird by swinging a duster, or something else, in front of her to see if she flinches, if she does not flinch then this means that she is blind or partially blind. Also, check her pupils when she lifts her legs high when walking.
If you realize that the bird is blind, or partially blind, then you don’t really have to be worried all that much, the bird will adjust to being blind especially if the blindness comes along slowly.
If your bird is blind, or partially blind, then she will simply adjust to being blind and carry on with her life. Just don’t make things more difficult for the bird by moving things around.
If your bird has been living with you for a while then the bird is likely already used to things being where they are, this makes finding things easy even if the animal is blind.
If you move things around, and the bird can’t find things, then this will make the bird upset and confused.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other chicken related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Chicken Walking Low On Ground, Chicken Hunched Up Tail Down, Chicken Walking Sideways
