Help please, Bugs on my hen?

[cluckers&quackers]

Last night when I went out to close all of my birds up for the night, I found one of my hens in the pig pen, it appeared that she had gotten in there and the pigs nosed her around as she was looking a little worse for wear. I put her in a cage so she could have some time to recoop, this morning I noticed a bunch of little bugs scurrying all over her head, kind of pale in color and moving fast. Are these mites, lice or? And what do I do?

Thanks for any help

 

[chicmom]

Sounds like mites......get some seven dust, (or poultry dust from the farm store), and dust her all over. The you've gotta do it one more time, like in exactly two weeks, to kill the eggs that hatch. Do a very thorough job.....I had that problem once with a chicken I bought from a poultry show, and I hung it upside down by it's feet and sprinkled it......

Don't put her back with the other hens, unless they have the bugs too.

 

[cluckers&quackers]

Okay, thank you so much!!

 

[dawg53]

I agree with chicmom. You also want to dust the cage she was in. You can put her in a small plastic gargage bag with sevin dust in it, gently "shake and bake" with her head sticking out the top. Then you can put a small amount of dust on her head with your fingers, carefully not getting any dust in your hens eyes.

 

[cluckers&quackers]

Thanks so much for the tips I will have hubby take me to get the stuff when he gets home from work

 

[Wynette]

If she's infested badly enough for you to see them scurrying over her head, she's heavily infested, and so are the rest of your chooks, unfortuantley. It takes quite a heavy infestation before you see them scurrying around on the head like that. It's probably lice, as mites move more slowly.

You need to remove & dust all the hens she was in with, remove ALL bedding and use a premise lice/mite spray (I use a lice spray for dogs to use in the house on carpets & furniture - it works great) - get in all corners, nest boxes, etc. Leave it set until it is dry, then put fresh bedding in. When you dust your chooks, you will need a place to put them for an hour or so...you want to make sure all the parasites are dead before putting the chooks back in the coop. I use an unused horse stall in my barn. Then, you'll want to dust again in 7-10 days to kill any new parasites that have hatched after the 1st dusting. If it's a REALLY bad infestation, do it 3 times to be sure you got them all. They can be very stubborn!

 

[cobrien]

I am no expert on this...but I've had one chicken with lice before. No experience with mites, though. I would describe the lice as looking like "pale colored fleas", off white in color. So I can't tell from the description if yours has lice or mites. Maybe the treatment is the same (?).

 

[cluckers&quackers]

Yes they are a pale color, and when I 1st saw them I thought the bodies sort of resembled head lice that human's get, and when I got another look at them I thought they resembled a flea, not quite the same but similiar. They were very pale in color and moving around very quickly.

I have never seen lice or mites that chickens get so I wasn't sure what I was seeing.

 

[cluckers&quackers]

I found a photo online, I think what I saw were lice