Chicken lice/mites?

[Danny188]

My hens and rooster are losing their feathers at first i thought the rooster was just beating up on the hens but then i saw he was losing feathers too. Id its mites can i get them? Could it just be a winter molt becuse I am giving them supplementary lighting? They arnt even a year old yet though my production in the last month has dropped from 18 eggs a day average to 12 without many changes in conditions.

 

[azygous]

Lice can show up just prior to spring so look at the skin around the vent for crawling bugs.

Mites are more difficult. Go out to the coop after dark and look at the perches for crawling things. Take a damp paper towel and wipe in over the roosts. If you come away with red smears, you have coop mites.

Treat the chickens with permethrin poultry dusting powder. Permethrin liquid will be required to treat the coop. Or you can spend some $$ and get the Rools Royce of pesticides for chickens called Elector PSP from Amazon. It's like the atomic bomb of all pesticides that are safe for poultry.

 

[Danny188]

Lice can show up just prior to spring so look at the skin around the vent for crawling bugs.

Mites are more difficult. Go out to the coop after dark and look at the perches for crawling things. Take a damp paper towel and wipe in over the roosts. If you come away with red smears, you have coop mites.

Treat the chickens with permethrin poultry dusting powder. Permethrin liquid will be required to treat the coop. Or you can spend some $$ and get the Rools Royce of pesticides for chickens called Elector PSP from Amazon. It's like the atomic bomb of all pesticides that are safe for poultry.

Ok thanks ill check tonight. also do you know if i can get them from the chickens?

 

[Folly's place]

Mites and lice might crawl on you, but they can't live there. They are critters who live on birds, not us.
Mary

 

[aart]

Funky feathers can be from lots of things.
Don't treat unless your sure they have bugs.

My Bug Check notes:
Have you checked them over real well for mites and/or lice?

Google images of lice/mites and their eggs before the inspection so you'll know what you're looking for.

Part the feathers right down to the skin around vent, head/neck and under wings.

Best done well after dark with a strong flashlight/headlight, easier to 'catch' bird and also to check for the mites that live in structure and only come out at night to feed off roosting birds.

Wipe a white paper towel along the underside of roost to look for red smears(smashed well fed mites).

Good post about mite ID by Lady McCamley:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-chicken-has-mites-now-what.1273674/page-2#post-20483008