Chicken not doing well! Mites won't go away!

[SweetJoy7]

Hello! We have a 3 year old buff orpington, Francis. In September she had mites. We gave her a bath and dusted her and she seemed to get better. A few weeks ago we realized she had really bad mites again. She probably has thousands. We have dusted her straight for about a week! Every day! The mites still won't go away. We are using garden and poultry dust and we also have some sevin dust. We have used a little bit of Poultry shield. She has them all over her face and I don't know if she'll last much longer. Does anybody know what to do? How do we get the mites off of her face? Any advice would be very much welcome! thank you and Happy Hanukkah!!!

 

[Michael Apple]

You may find this information helpful: http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/poultry/pfs23.pdf

 

[SweetJoy7]

Hello! We just gave Francis a bath. She has so many mites on her still. We just don't know what to do! If the mites aren't killed soon, she won't last. Nothing seems to be working! I checked some of the other chickens and they don't have any. Francis is now isolated from the others. Anything would be appreciated. Thank you!!!!!

 

[cafarmgirl]

If you have one bird with mites it's most probable that the other birds have them too to at least to some extent, maybe just not as bad as this bird. You really have to treat all the birds and you absolutely must strip and treat the coop. Then repeat the whole process in 7 to 10 days. That is the hatch cycle of mites and the treatments don't kill the eggs. If you miss a few mites or if you don't retreat in that time frame to get the eggs that hatch, you are quickly right back where you started. Sometimes you have to retreat several times. For the coop I prefer Sevin spray, it's easier to get it really good into all the nooks and crannies where the bugs like to hide. On the birds I use the Poultry Dust.

 

[Michael Apple]

If you have one bird with mites it's most probable that the other birds have them too to at least to some extent, maybe just not as bad as this bird. You really have to treat all the birds and you absolutely must strip and treat the coop. Then repeat the whole process in 7 to 10 days. That is the hatch cycle of mites and the treatments don't kill the eggs. If you miss a few mites or if you don't retreat in that time frame to get the eggs that hatch, you are quickly right back where you started. Sometimes you have to retreat several times. For the coop I prefer Sevin spray, it's easier to get it really good into all the nooks and crannies where the bugs like to hide. On the birds I use the Poultry Dust.

X2. When you strip the coop bare, use one of the emulsified concentrates such as some of those suggested in the link I posted, you won't have to treat the premises more than once since they have a 30 day residual. If you use a poultry dust on birds, you will have to repeat in 7-10 days like cafarmgirl mentioned. Atroban 11% EC, Permectrin II, Ravap EC are all very effective and can be used on premises as well as the birds. Just follow label instructions.

If you follow a routine of premise treatment every 3-4 months, you will likely not see the problem occur again. Scaly leg mites are a bit more difficult to prevent without a monthly treatment of roosts.