100 year old question here...

[andrea98]

i was looking over my 20 week old chickens & on two of them i saw 2 different kinds of little crawling bugs.
1st was a small rice colored roundish bug that was on the skin,
2nd was an oval longer looking brown bug that liked to stay on the feather shaft.
what are these & how do i get rid of them .. i look over them all the time & today was the first i seen them . i did just give them a sand box on sunday with play sand from menards, could they have came from that? i have seen wild birds in the run because i do throw them some scratch.
i dont have any one laying rt now but i do have a broody that has 3 eggs due to hatch on monday , so i wanna get this under control now before the babies get here.

 

[Southernbelle]

Probably lice or mites

I used to use Sevin dust 5%, but the manufacturers recently pulled that from the shelves

I like using Ivomec pour on cattle wormer - one bottle will last FOREVER. Use 0.25cc for banties, 0.5cc for standards. It's effective on mites, mange and internal parasites.

Use a pesticide spray that is safe for animals and spray the coop, roosts and change the bedding. The one I use is safe for pets after it's dry, so I usually have to lock everyone out until it's dry. Using Stall Dry or DE on the bedding will help keep down future outbreaks, but they're not effective on their own for a serious infestation.

 

[andrea98]

well i dusted them with a dust tha is for chickens & plants , veggies & fruits ( not sure of the name right off) i bought it from tsc & i asked the lady about 2 of them & this was the one she advised to use. so i hope they will be gone in a few days

 

[threehorses]

That's both lice and mites. The round ones are mites, they were about to feed. The lice were the elongated ones.

Dusting with permethrin is what to do for the body of the bird. Repeat each 7 days for at least 21 days (three total treatments). Also use the Permethrin (not Secin if possible) under the bedding, then in the bedding - stir in well.

Unfortunately with mites you have to also treat the wood. That's a little trickier as mites live off the bird and only go on to feed, then they get off and go back into the cracks of the wood (and roosting poles) and lay their eggs. The best product for this is the goat-lice spray permethrin, or the livestock insect spray permethrin. You just spray on the nestbox wood, on the sides and bottoms of the roost poles, and on the wood up to 3' from the bedding in the coops. It's important to do that to kill the majority of the mites where they're hiding and multiplying. You can do that once, retreat the birds every 7 days.

I'm glad at least you caught them, especially the mites! They're very tricky to catch on the birds! I'd definitely knock them down. Also check for sparrow nests always in your coops/barn and remove them.

 

[andrea98]

ty very much..do they come from the wild birds because this is the 1st time i have seen them. these are my birds i got as 1 day old & the other 3 that are in with them were clean also. the only thing that is new is the sand....uggh i hate bugs on my pets!!!!

and as far as the spray , do i soak the wood & lock the peeps outside till it dries?

***they dont have a lot on them, you have to look for a min to see them & so i hope this is going to be easy to clean up. however i do have a broody in there that has 3 eggs & one is a pip so i didnt dust her. i know i will need to but when seeing how she will have babies in with her????