Found rice sized hairy things in coop and lots of them?

[Bone]

Hi I'm quite new to keeping chickens only had them a couple of months now all ready had to deal with lice problem but thats sorted now. The new problem is I was cleaning out the nest boxes in the coop (I am using the deep litter method) and thought I saw lots of rat dropings, on closer inspection they look like some sort of parasite they are about as big as a cooked grain of rice and hairy they look like they may even be at pupa stage and hatch out into something? has anyone any ideas as to what they may be?

 

[poultryhaven]

Are they possibly maggots? Pics would be great =]

 

[fowlrus]

Interesting! Hairy you said? what color are they?

 

[RockyToggRanch]

Were they moving? Perhaps just fuzzy rat poop. I would assume it grows molds on it as it decays?

Some kinds of maggots are fuzzy too. Some have tails. (I worked in a bait shop for awhile

)

 

[CMV]

Maggots I would say.

 

[Bone]

Definatly not maggots I know what a maggot looks like and these are'nt maggots and definatly not a hairy rat droping. Ill try and get some pictures up.

 

[chickenwhisperer123]

Quote:

I would like to see a picture!!

 

[Bone]

I've found it did a bit more of an indepth search on the internet and they are infact larva of the carpet beatle, I dont think theres any threat to the chickens infact they will probably get eaten if seen so panic over. here's a link to what they look like.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&start=63&um=1

 

[LynneP]

A gentle sprinkle of food-grade diatomaceous earth in the nesting bedding will prevent that...

 

[Bone]

Thanks for advice i'll do that