Seeing your chicken suffer through an illness is not easy, but thankfully, a couple of chicken diseases can be treated with minimal effort and by using treatments that are not harsh.
So, can iodine be used to treat fowlpox? This article looks into it
Table of Contents
Iodine for fowlpox:
Fowlpox is a disease that can quickly spread throughout your flock. There isn’t a cure but there are a couple of treatments that you can use on your bird to make this illness easier to deal with, and iodine is one of them.
Iodine:
Iodine is used by humans to help maintain good health, it can also be used on chickens suffering from fowlpox.
Dry fowlpox (the fowlpox that affects the non-feathery parts of your chicken’s body, and the one that causes lesions that turn into black scabs on your chicken’s skin) can be treated using iodine.
The scabs produced by dry fowlpox should not be removed, they should fall off on their own.
If you do remove them by picking or scratching them off then this can create wounds on your bird’s skin and cause a secondary infection to develop. You can treat these scabs by using iodine.
The iodine works as a general antiseptic, it also helps to dry the scabs off allowing them to fall off quickly and on their own.
How to use iodine:
If left unattended, the scabs on your bird’s skin will dry up and fall off 2 – 4 weeks after first appearing. However, if you want to speed this process up then you can use iodine on the scabs to help them dry and fall off even sooner.
You can use undiluted iodine and apply this directly onto your bird’s scabs. Dab this solution onto your bird’s scabs using a cotton round or a q-tip. Make sure that you avoid the bird’s eyes and nostrils when doing this.
Iodine can also be helpful when used internally, you’d need to dilute the iodine before feeding it to your chickens.
To do this, dilute one teaspoon of 1 percent iodine into one gallon of water, if you’re using 2 percent iodine then mix half a teaspoon of it into a gallon of water. Give this to your birds as their only source of drinking water.
This solution will sanitize the drinking water and help to stop the spread.
What is the best treatment for fowlpox?
There are a few other treatments that you can use to treat your bird’s fowlpox. These treatments will not cure the bird, there is no known cure for this ailment, but they will help the bird fight off the disease:
Vitamins and minerals: A bird with a strong immune system will be better equipped to fight this illness off. Giving the bird vitamins and minerals will help keep the bird’s immune system running at its best. The vitamins and minerals will also promote rapid wound healing.
Betadine: This is another treatment that is used to treat wounds and prevent infection. It can be used on chickens who have fowlpox.
First aid salve: The scabs can also be treated using a first aid salve like cetrigen or manuka honey.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Chicken Has A Purple Comb And Is Lethargic, Chicken Comb Turning Grey, Chicken Comb Turning Blue, Turmeric For Fowlpox, Toothpaste For Fowlpox