Creepy crawly's on chickens....

[Hoosiermomma]

Hi. While my son was holding one of our chickens today there were a few little teeny tiny transluscent tannish colored inch worm type things crawling on him. Sorry for the vague description.

Anyone know what they might be and how to get rid of them? Our chickens free range during the day, take a lot of dirt baths and then go in at night. We live in S.E Indiana if that helps any.

PS I could probaby try to take a picture but they are so tiny they may not show up.

 

[Imp]

momto5...

Check out this link to mites and lice. It may help. Hope they're not really an inch long.


http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html


Good Luck,
Imp

 

[Hoosiermomma]

No they aren't an inch long. Right now the ones I saw were maybe about 1 cm or less. Would giving them a dust bath be safe for baby chicks (8 weeks on up) too? What about ivermectin in the water?

 

[Imp]

Quote:
LOL! You wrote inch type worms, I read inch long worms. I'm cleaning glasses as I type.
I just checked my permethrin poultry dust and liquid. Neither say anything about using in chicks either way. I googled and got a lot of conflicting info, but nothing specific about chicks. I just don't know for sure. Maybe you could do a search for ivermectin and get a better answer. And hopefully someone on here will respond, who has more experience.

Imp
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=96773&p=2
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=154380&p=4

 

[Hoosiermomma]

Well I just dusted their bedding with some 7 dust and DE. Tomorrow morning first thing I will dust the chickens, minus the chicks. I will call our local tsc and see what they suggest. Hopefully before then someone who may have had a similar situation will respond to the post.

 

[Imp]

Sounds like a good plan.

Good luck,
Imp

 

[Hoosiermomma]

Thanks! I appreciate it!!!