Keeperofmunchkins
Songster
A few weeks ago I found a couple of tiny crawling bugs on eggs that a hen was sitting on. This is the first time in four years of keeping chickens that I have encountered what I suspect to be either red mite or Northern fowl mite (in the past I've had small problems with scaly leg mite and depluming mites).
The bugs on the eggs squashed red from the blood inside but I hoped they were Northern fowl mites because this meant they would be living on the birds only, from my research.
So I treated my whole flock with ivermectin drops on the back of the neck. I also cleaned out and replaced all the nest box material and wood shavings around the coop, but my coop is old and rather shoddily built/pieced together by myself so has lots of nooks and crannies in old wood that makes it hard to deep clean.
Now a couple of weeks later I was scraping up the poop from the bottom of the coop and then found several little bugs on my hand. On closer inspection they seem to not have ingested any or much blood because when I squished them they were clear/grey. I'm worried this means they are red mites living in the bedding or wood and not feeding on the chickens at present because the chickens still have ivermectin in their bloodstream (effective for around 4 weeks the box said).
But how long can mites live without feeding on the chickens? And aren't red mites supposed to look red at all times anyway? Just what kind of bugs am I dealing with here?
I have attached some photos of the apparently bloodless bugs I found today.
Does any know just by looking at them what kind of mites these are?
Also do those bug smoke bomb things work? because I was thinking to try to use them in my coop, instead of some kind of spray or dust since my coop has so many areas that are harder to treat.
The bugs on the eggs squashed red from the blood inside but I hoped they were Northern fowl mites because this meant they would be living on the birds only, from my research.
So I treated my whole flock with ivermectin drops on the back of the neck. I also cleaned out and replaced all the nest box material and wood shavings around the coop, but my coop is old and rather shoddily built/pieced together by myself so has lots of nooks and crannies in old wood that makes it hard to deep clean.
Now a couple of weeks later I was scraping up the poop from the bottom of the coop and then found several little bugs on my hand. On closer inspection they seem to not have ingested any or much blood because when I squished them they were clear/grey. I'm worried this means they are red mites living in the bedding or wood and not feeding on the chickens at present because the chickens still have ivermectin in their bloodstream (effective for around 4 weeks the box said).
But how long can mites live without feeding on the chickens? And aren't red mites supposed to look red at all times anyway? Just what kind of bugs am I dealing with here?
I have attached some photos of the apparently bloodless bugs I found today.
Does any know just by looking at them what kind of mites these are?
Also do those bug smoke bomb things work? because I was thinking to try to use them in my coop, instead of some kind of spray or dust since my coop has so many areas that are harder to treat.
