A northern fowl mite who-dun-it

[DonyaQuick]

I have a rooster that recently got northern fowl mites; I am rigorous with physical inspections including butt inspections every 1-2 days on all my birds, so I caught it probably as fast as was reasonably possible and am treating aggressively with permethrin, and it hasn't spread to other birds so far. Careful nocturnal inspections showed zero mite activity inside my coops; the mites are limited to the skin/feathers of the one bird and his situation is improving. That's all the good part since it seems like I have it controlled. Now the frustrating part that led me to make a thread about it: I think I may have a mite-infested part of my property, because:

• No new birds in my flock in any kind of tine frame that would cause this, no sparrows getting into coops, etc. - basically no obvious vector except that one little rooster's excursion. Mites showed up obviously the usual 5-7 days later one would expect if a few adults laid eggs on him that evening. He didn't go anywhere else on the property during that time.
• My dog has repeatedly been bitten by something on the skin around her privates, and finally figured out it's happening after she pees in the area where my rooster went. Vets weren't sure what did it to my dog but also weren't interested in figuring it out. I thought maybe chiggers, but then...
• I got bitten by mites I pulled off of my rooster to look at since a couple got inside my glove for a while - long enough to have a nibble, and the damage looks exactly like what's on my dog (and man it HURT after about 15min! Now I know why my dog cries about those bites). Unfortunately I'm unlikely to actually find a live mite on my dog because she's on one of those meds where if a tick/mite/etc bites her, it will drop off dead in short order.

The part of the property I'm worried about is between a compost pile and a raised bed I put in earlier in the year. I haven't been bitten while over there but I wear boots. There are wild birds all over the place, but they go all over the place and don't really hang out there. There is, however, a rabbit. It comes out of the brush and heads over there every single evening without fail, rain or shine. It also doesn't really explore a lot of other areas on the property that I've seen but really does spend a significant amount of time over in the area of suspicion. I've read rabbits "can" be carriers. I don't know how likely that is though. Am I out of my mind thinking the rabbit is the most likely culprit here??? I don't see any evidence of burrows for other small animals in the area. The rabbit is the only obvious thing that's there enough for me to suspect it. I haven't seen any burrows or rodent activity, although perhaps I need to look more closely.

Regarding rabbits as hosts, this is one abstract I read:

"(...) Sikes & Chamberlain (1954, J. Parasitol. 40: 691–97) found that adult northern fowl mites would feed on mice and rabbits but not on man. Of the female mites tested, 15–20% engorged sufficiently on mouse or rabbit blood to induce oviposition, and between 80% and 94% of these eggs hatched."

However, I can't find anything saying how likely this is to occur in the wild. The mice host thing is also plausible in my case if there are mice I'm not seeing over there and maybe I could set traps, but again I don't know the relative likelihoods.

 

[Debbie292d]

Those mites and others are common on wild birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and other rodents. I'm not sure about wild rabbits, but probably them too. We feed the wild birds here and wouldn't you know our free-ranging flock loves to go under those feeders and eat the sunflower seeds that are dropped, as well as the mourning doves, chipmunks, red squirrels, gray squirrels, mice, moles, voles, and other wild birds. That has to be a cluster of mites and lice going on there but when they head over to the flower garden to dust bathe or return to the coop, apparently us keeping both sprinkled with either food grade DE (diatomaceous earth) or 1st Sat. Lime kills what they may be carrying as they've never gotten infested with any.

I know neither of those products are going to help much once there IS an infestation but I've heard of people using permethrin or ivermectin to get rid of them.

If you suspect a certain area is where your rooster picked them up at, you could sprinkle one of those two products all over. We do it around our house too to keep the ants out.

 

[DonyaQuick]

That has to be a cluster of mites and lice going on there but when they head over to the flower garden to dust bathe or return to the coop, apparently us keeping both sprinkled with either food grade DE (diatomaceous earth) or 1st Sat. Lime kills what they may be carrying as they've never gotten infested with any.

Oo I do have a big bag of DE just sitting around. Got it for dealing with cutworms and only used like 1 cup of it, and so it's just sat. Maybe this is the time, although I'll have to do it around rains. My husband just mowed the vegetation super short there to prep it if I wanted to apply something. I hadn't been wanting to dump permethrin over something like a 50ft square area but despite the flack DE gets sometimes I've seen some citations for it being effective against mites in the environment if I recall so I think that'll be my first move. Even if I permanently keep the chickens away from the area I've got to do something so my dog doesn't keep getting bitten up - or me when I go to harvest the stuff out of the raised bed later this month.

Will have a look at 1st sat lime. Not heard of that before.

Unfortunately, probably a good part of why my particular rooster is having issues with the mites but no other chickens in the flock are is he just will NOT dust bathe normally. I can get him to do it about once every 3 weeks or so if I'm lucky. He's heavily imprinted on me so to get him to dust bathe I have to go dig in the dirt with him for 15+ miutes, and even then there's a coin toss chance he'll see a bug and completely forget about the dirt before he's really gotten into it properly. Lovely little fellow, but doesn't have much in the way of how-to-chicken instincts. Giving him a daily manual fluff with some permethrin powder has him down to just whatever mites have just hatched out, which I believe indicates the mite egg cycle is broken and I'm just trying to keep it stopped until they run out, so we'll get there...it's just slow.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well speak of the devil, I may not have found a live mite mon my dog, but I did find a dead adult one stuck in the fur on her leg. Those are definitely what's getting her even if they die right after. Unfortunately she got bitten again after visiting a different area of the property...so I've got more than one mite infested area to deal with. Great. Pretty confident I know where the one spot is but now have to figure out where else my dog is picking them up. I suspect near the forest edge but not entirely sure.

Haven't been able to apply DE yet. Too much rain; it would just get washed away. I'm just keeping my chickens in for now, keeping my dog away from the known bad spot, and waiting for a big dry stretch to apply it where I think the mites are in some density.

Also thought I should report that manually dust bathing my little roo THEN putting a little permethrin on him is actually doing way more to get rid of his mites than just the medicated dust alone. The permethrin does work but it's very hard to get it all over him because he doesn't like it. He seems to like "let's all play in the dirt" time so I can get a lot of fine dirt mixed into his feathers.

 

[Lumley Farm]

I have a rooster that recently got northern fowl mites; I am rigorous with physical inspections including butt inspections every 1-2 days on all my birds, so I caught it probably as fast as was reasonably possible and am treating aggressively with permethrin, and it hasn't spread to other birds so far. Careful nocturnal inspections showed zero mite activity inside my coops; the mites are limited to the skin/feathers of the one bird and his situation is improving. That's all the good part since it seems like I have it controlled. Now the frustrating part that led me to make a thread about it: I think I may have a mite-infested part of my property, because:

• No new birds in my flock in any kind of tine frame that would cause this, no sparrows getting into coops, etc. - basically no obvious vector except that one little rooster's excursion. Mites showed up obviously the usual 5-7 days later one would expect if a few adults laid eggs on him that evening. He didn't go anywhere else on the property during that time.
• My dog has repeatedly been bitten by something on the skin around her privates, and finally figured out it's happening after she pees in the area where my rooster went. Vets weren't sure what did it to my dog but also weren't interested in figuring it out. I thought maybe chiggers, but then...
• I got bitten by mites I pulled off of my rooster to look at since a couple got inside my glove for a while - long enough to have a nibble, and the damage looks exactly like what's on my dog (and man it HURT after about 15min! Now I know why my dog cries about those bites). Unfortunately I'm unlikely to actually find a live mite on my dog because she's on one of those meds where if a tick/mite/etc bites her, it will drop off dead in short order.

The part of the property I'm worried about is between a compost pile and a raised bed I put in earlier in the year. I haven't been bitten while over there but I wear boots. There are wild birds all over the place, but they go all over the place and don't really hang out there. There is, however, a rabbit. It comes out of the brush and heads over there every single evening without fail, rain or shine. It also doesn't really explore a lot of other areas on the property that I've seen but really does spend a significant amount of time over in the area of suspicion. I've read rabbits "can" be carriers. I don't know how likely that is though. Am I out of my mind thinking the rabbit is the most likely culprit here??? I don't see any evidence of burrows for other small animals in the area. The rabbit is the only obvious thing that's there enough for me to suspect it. I haven't seen any burrows or rodent activity, although perhaps I need to look more closely.

Regarding rabbits as hosts, this is one abstract I read:

"(...) Sikes & Chamberlain (1954, J. Parasitol. 40: 691–97) found that adult northern fowl mites would feed on mice and rabbits but not on man. Of the female mites tested, 15–20% engorged sufficiently on mouse or rabbit blood to induce oviposition, and between 80% and 94% of these eggs hatched."

However, I can't find anything saying how likely this is to occur in the wild. The mice host thing is also plausible in my case if there are mice I'm not seeing over there and maybe I could set traps, but again I don't know the relative likelihoods.

How can you actually see the mite? The one I found I had the feather under a high-powered magnifier.

 

[SmiYa0126]

Well speak of the devil, I may not have found a live mite mon my dog, but I did find a dead adult one stuck in the fur on her leg. Those are definitely what's getting her even if they die right after. Unfortunately she got bitten again after visiting a different area of the property...so I've got more than one mite infested area to deal with. Great. Pretty confident I know where the one spot is but now have to figure out where else my dog is picking them up. I suspect near the forest edge but not entirely sure.

Haven't been able to apply DE yet. Too much rain; it would just get washed away. I'm just keeping my chickens in for now, keeping my dog away from the known bad spot, and waiting for a big dry stretch to apply it where I think the mites are in some density.

Also thought I should report that manually dust bathing my little roo THEN putting a little permethrin on him is actually doing way more to get rid of his mites than just the medicated dust alone. The permethrin does work but it's very hard to get it all over him because he doesn't like it. He seems to like "let's all play in the dirt" time so I can get a lot of fine dirt mixed into his feathers.

Can you post a picture of the mite you found?

 

[DonyaQuick]

How can you actually see the mite? The one I found I had the feather under a high-powered magnifier.

Were you looking for eggs/larvae or adults? Or perhaps depluming mites instead? Adult northern fowl mites are about 1mm and crawl all over the place. The nymphs are harder for me to spot but I can still see them without magnification if they're moving, particularly if they've fed and changed color as a result.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Can you post a picture of the mite you found?

I didn't save it, so no. My attempts to take photos of adult grain mites were relatively pointless in the past when people asked for photos of those, and they are only slightly smaller, so I kind of doubt a phone photo of a northern fowl mite will look like anything more than a tiny, blurry dark dot.

 

[aart]

My attempts to take photos of adult grain mites were relatively pointless in the past when people asked for photos of those,

Pics of grain mites here....one in post #5 is thru a microscope:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/grain-mites.981212/

 

[DonyaQuick]

Pics of grain mites here....one in post #5 is thru a microscope:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/grain-mites.981212/

That was actually one of the things that helped me ID my grain/mold mites last year! All I could get was a picture of the nasty swarms/piles they sometimes form on damp wood.

My ability to take pics of tiny things is just gabage most of the time. My eyes are better than what my phone picks up for things on the order of 1mm like these mites, so folks will just have to trust my northern fowl mite ID on this thread. There are lots of pics of them online I used as reference, behaviors that match, and I can see the adults pretty well well for their tiny size to compare to the multitude of photos (just don't ask me to read any street signs that aren't in the big freeway sign size). I have a macro lense for my phone but the subject has to hold still to not be blurry. I do have a decent microcscope in storage, but no good space to set it up at the moment...and frankly just little inclination to go try to catch one of the little demons now that they're under control on my roo as far as I can tell. They get crushed so easily trying to pick them off a feather that it's pretty obvious why dust bathing is effective against them, and they move so fast otherwise that they can escape really easily if crawling on a hand/arm.

As for updates on my situation with dealing with northern fowl mites in the environment, my area had torrential rains for a couple days and I think that may have simply drowned them or just gotten them to go elsewhere. My husband had mown the suspected area really short so the rains washed it well. My dog has been back there a couple times since the rains and no new bites.

Post rains, I also did find a burrow from something quite a bit smaller than the rabbit - got to be some kind of rodent that was living right around there, so plausibility suggests that was the culprit, not the rabbit. Destroyed the burrow and it doesn't seem to have come back. Buggs Bunny gets a pass I guess even though he's annoying in other ways.