Do Mosquitoes and Other Biters Bug Chickens?

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Cickens are mmune to West Nile, but other than that, I entirely agree.

Yep, chickens are used as sentinal chickens in Jax and other cities to detect west nile and encephalitis.

Here too, at least for West Nile. They do weekly blood tests on the chickens to look for antibodies. There are many encephalitis diseases, and I know that some of them can cause illness in chickens, but it would not surprise me if there are some that do not.

 

[202roosterlane]

My chickens love anything moving. It's funny to see them chase butterflies. We have mosquitoes bad to here in the minnow farm capitol of the world. LOL But so far so good. I also use the PP on them and thier nesting area. They seem happier. What's funny is I put a LARGE cookie tray under hanging food bin and when I moved it to clean out the pen, a bunch of little crawlys were under there. Needless to say they did not survive long. Pretty happy chickens.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Many mosquitoes are active mostly at night, while the birds are sleeping.

 

[dawg53]

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Yep, chickens are used as sentinal chickens in Jax and other cities to detect west nile and encephalitis.

Here too, at least for West Nile. They do weekly blood tests on the chickens to look for antibodies. There are many encephalitis diseases, and I know that some of them can cause illness in chickens, but it would not surprise me if there are some that do not.

Yes, you're correct. And the chickens have to be replaced once they get any one of the diseases afterwards. Here, it's eastern equine ensephalitis (EEE.)

 

[ChickMandy]

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Yes, the heavy gauge cage wire is what's over the windows. I didn't write it correctly.

 

[ChickMandy]

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They love going in a few of our gardens - which are no longer gardens

I have seen them rolling in the dirt, making holes for themselves, etc. Hopefully that is helping!

 

[M.sue]

We have regular screen on our coop windows. After reading these posts I'm going to add some insect screening! We live out in the country and the bugs can be horrendous at times. I just love this site and all the helpful info!!

 

[AccentOnHakes]

I don't think so--their feathers should be enough protection. Might want to watch out for their faces, but they move so much I don't think it should be a problem.

 

[aggie9296]

I have yet to have any mosquito-chicken problems here in Florida. But we've been kind of dry. Now that we are getting rain, I expect the skeeters to bloom. We'll see how much of a problem it is for the chickens.