Hello! I have been searching for some ways to address my chickens problems. I need help with what are lice and mites? How are these treated? My 4 roosters have all of their feathers. Many of my hens are almost bare. No tail feathers, bare backs bare butts and legs. All of these chickens are 14 months old. They have a large indoor is 10x12 with a full screen door and a window for ventilation. The out door area is over 100 feet x 100 feet. I have about 70 birds all together. I have tried suite, (fat) apple cider vinegar. I feed them laying pellets, cracked corn lots of whole grains and whole corn all the left overs. They get greens worms snails etc outside. They have a 5 gallon water holder inside and another water bucket outside. I have at least 10 laying boxes and several roosting bars. We use wood shavings from the farm store for their bedding. They have been bare since the the winter season ended. The type of birds: White Jersey Giants, White Rocks and probably 8 Red star mix. My concern is I don't see how this can be molting I thought for sure this would get better when we opened up the back for them and made it so much larger 2 months ago. I see no change for the better. I look forward to any information and ideas to get this resolved. Thank you in advance!
I'll give you a university link about lice and mites, which recommends Sevin dust (a garden dust,) and some other links. Eprinex, a pour-on cattle wormer, will kill the ones that bite, as will permethrin dust or spray. You will also need to treat the coop. Unless your birds are really infested, though, the bald places really sound like feather picking. This is usually due to either too little space or too little protein. You have a huge outdoor area for them but not a real big indoor one; could this be happening at night? It's not a molting pattern, which starts at the head and neck, and usually results in raggedy looking birds rather than large bare areas. It could be that the extra foods you are giving has resulted in lower protein intake. Bugs and worms have protein but not a lot. Feather picking can be really hard to get stopped if it's been going on a long time. There are some threads on the FAQ page about it. http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=472405 http://healthybirds.umd.edu/Disease/Deworming Birds.pdf https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=457016&p=1
