Chicken Molting are white flakes Mites?

[JeNayNay]

I'm a chicken Newbie! One of my girls is molting and she's got a lot of white flakey stuff under her feathers. Would that be bugs or mites or just the dust from molting?
I would love to make a dust bath for them but I live in Oregon and it is so rainy right now there is not a dry spot for them. Is it safe to put some DE in the hen house where they roost in their shavings? I didn't want to put it there because they sleep there and they poop on all of the shavings.
I know there are a few questions here...sorry! haha.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[azygous]

You can relax. The white flaky dust is likely feather dander, and there is lots of that during molt.

To be certain you aren't seeing mites or lice, look on the skin around the vent on your chickens. Any mites or ice should be easy to see crawling around. Lice eggs will look like a gummy substance along the feather shafts close to the skin in this vent area.

You can make a small dirt bath for your chickens in their coop, but DE isn't good to use as it's abrasive and very hard on the respiratory systems of your chickens. Peat moss or sand or a combination of these two with some sifted wood ash mixed in are safe and chickens love it. You can use a cat litter box (the open kind) for a dirt bath. The container needn't be huge. I've seen chickens dirt bathe in a twelve inch flower pot.

 

[Little Chicken Girl]

White dust (dander) is normal during molting (as you can see in the pic below):

To tell if the chickens have lice, part the downy feathers below the vent and look for white egg sacs clumped around the base of the feather shafts (avian lice) or black, dirt like flecks (northern fowl mites). You can read more about how to identify external parasites In poultry here ---> http://thewayofthechicken.com/index.php/2018/02/22/preventing-treating-external-parasites/#more-5119

If you are having trouble getting dirt to stay dry (I live in the same state so I feel ya), you could try filling a kiddy pool with dust and fashioning a tarp tent over the top. There are many ways to make a fancier dust bathing spot but the kiddy pool version is quick, cheap and it works. Additionally, the chickens love congregating around the kiddy pool and perching on the the rounded edges.

 

[Latestarter]

Add some fireplace/wood stove/fire ash to the dust bath as that also helps control external parasites.